Financial companies are amongst those likely to be targeted for incidents of employee fraud. Recent news that former state Senator Christopher Maselli was jailed for 27 months, for fraudulently obtaining $1.7 million, highlights that fraudulent behaviour is carried out by people from all areas of society.
The financial services industry recorded one of the highest losses to fraudsters amongst UK sectors, according to data released by the National Fraud Authority (NFA)*. Its Annual Fraud Indicator (AFI) found that £3.6 billion was lost from fraudulent activity, which is only a slight decrease on the 2010 figure of £3.8 billion. Despite utilising improved fraud prevention methods, card transaction losses accounted for £440 million, cheque fraud £30 million with on-line banking has recorded an increase of 14% equating to £60 million. Mortgage fraud stood at £1 billion and insurance at £2.1 billion. Following collaboration between the NFA and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) a new inclusion to the AFI showed losses to SME’s employing less than 250 people contributed £780million toward fraudulent activity.
Banking is no longer the transparent financial service it was; the ever-changing environment in which they operate means that the regulatory problems struggle to be resolved: new issues emerge and old issues reappear in a different form. It remains imperative that companies utilise new technologies to assist with incident management and provide employees with an effective tool to quickly communicate events that may carry risks of loss or litigation. Greater emphasis must be placed on educational initiatives to enhance and promote the benefits of fraud prevention and detection systems within companies. As part of Expolink’s on-going commitment to helping businesses reduce the risk of fraudulent activity, it introduced a web-based Incident and Case Management solution that provides a comprehensive interface for data entry, reporting and investigative enquiries and much more.
Report Exec allows users to create, share and protect detailed records of incidents taking place within the company. Using the online reporting facility, financial organisations can immediately provide a tool to log unlimited reports of unusual activity anywhere in the world at anytime, whilst managing the flow of information to administrators far more efficiently. Complete with a comprehensive case management module, specific incidents can be investigated whilst powerful trend analysis properties help identify more serious circumstances.
It is hoped that the AFI statistics will push initiatives in the field of fraud prevention further for the financial sector. It is vital that companies work together and take action to prevent the increase in fraudulent activity. In the current economic climate, businesses need to work intelligently in all areas of loss prevention and improve efficiency to maintain a competitive edge.
(* Figures obtained from NFA)
