UPDATE 1-Top bankers need to take cyber threat seriously -BoE

* Firms urged to sign up to voluntary resilience test

* Tendency to deem issue not worth of board attention -FPC

* FPC calls for stronger governance, management (Recasts, adds background)

By Matt Scuffham and William Schomberg

LONDON, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Top British bankers and othersenior executives in the financial services industry are nottaking the risk of cyber attacks seriously enough, financialpolicymakers at the Bank of England say.

Cyber crime costs the global economy $445 billion a year andthe bill is rising, according to the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies.

Banks are particularly vulnerable, despite spending hundredsof millions of dollars a year on cyber defences. Increasinglysophisticated criminals are trying to steal money or clientdata, cause havoc in financial markets or score politicalpoints.

Minutes of the most recent meetings of the Bank's FinancialPolicy Committee noted "a tendency among (banking) firms to viewcyber threats as a technical problem rather than an issue whichmerits board-level attention given the evolving nature of cyberthreats and the key importance of cyber resilience to continuityof financial services".

Cyber criminals obtained details of 83 million clients fromJPMorgan Chase this year while Sony Pictures was hackedin an attack the United States has blamed on North Korea.

The minutes published on Monday showed the Bank of Englandand some financial service firms were in advanced discussionsover taking a voluntary test known as CBEST, in which they wouldhire hackers to attack them at will in order to test theirresilience.

Other major banks and key financial institutions should alsotake the test as soon as possible, the FPC minutes said.

The FPC also said banks in Britain need to do more than passhealth checks on their ability to withstand financial shocks,urging boards to improve the way their companies are run.

Last week, the BoE said Britain's biggest lenders, with theexception of the Co-operative Bank, had passed stress tests ofhow well prepared they were.

British banks have been embroiled in scandals ranging fromattempts to fix benchmark interest and foreign exchange rates tothe mis-selling of loan insurance and complex hedging productsto small businesses.

"In this environment, the Committee judged that strong,effective and well-informed management and governancearrangements would be essential to rebuild confidence in thebanking system," the minutes said.