Financial firms caught unawares by speed, severity of downturn

The overwhelming majority of financial services firms worldwide were caught looking as the financial crisis descended, according to a survey released by Ernst & Young Global Ltd. of London.
The survey, conducted online in June, polled 569 executives from 125 global financial services firms, more than a quarter of which were based in North America.

Seventy-two percent of those surveyed said they were surprised at the severity of the downtown, and 70% said they were taken aback by its speed.

In addition, most financial services firms expected the recession to stick around for at least the rest of this year: 24% of the respondents said they expected the return to growth to begin in the first six months of 2010, and 32% said they expected recovery to begin later than that, the report said.

The survey was sponsored by Ernst & Young and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd., a London-based research and advisory firm that is a division of The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist.

Survey respondents were drawn from around the world, and more than half of the executives polled worked for companies with annual revenue of $1 billion or more.