The financial sector has been revealed as a laggard in terms of developing and deploying policies governing employees' use of their own computing equipment in the workplace.Only 26 per cent of global financial sector organisations have a BYOD (bring your own device) policy in place. A further 23 per cent don't have one now but do plan to develop one. However, a staggering 49 per cent don't have one and don't plan to have one.By comparison, 65 per cent of health sector enterprises; 43 per cent of public sector organisations; and 55 per cent of technology businesses already have BYOD policies in place.According to the data protection company Acronis, which commissioned the Ponemon Institute survey of 4300 IT professionals, this lack of a BYOD policy renders organisations particularly vulnerable to privacy and security breaches as people download or access corporate data using their personal devices.BYOD is a phenomenon sweeping through all sectors as employees use their own smart phones or tablets to connect to corporate systems either in the office or remotely.  Analyst Gartner predicts that BYOD will become so widespread by 2016 that 38 per cent of all organisations will stop providing employees with devices to use in the workplace, and expect them to bring their own.Without a well articulated and understood BYOD policy however, financial institutions are leaving themselves and their data vulnerable. A separate Ponemon Institute survey, conducted earlier this year, saw 69 per cent of respondents identify mobile devices - which will inevitably form the bulk of any BYOD population - as the most likely sources of enterprise data leaks.