Suppliers are essential to providing companies with what they need to conduct business, however, they also pose their own set of fraud risks, arsing internally form staff – or externally. Staff could pose as legitimate or false suppliers. Even they could divert funds for their own use that was intended for a supplier.
Customers are important to the running of your business. They are your source of revenue. Meanwhile they can also pose a significant fraud risk. Most of your customers will come to your company in good faith to make a genuine purchase of products or services. Unfortunately there are other customers that will attempt to leave your business out of pocket.
Nearly 20% of business have been defrauded by an employee at some point during their trading history, causing significant loss and in some cases have destroyed a business. It is those on the inside of your company who can often do the most damage, due to their access to your key assets and familiarity with your processes (and how they might be bypassed). Your employees represent your businesses values and give it an identity. Their ethics and behaviours are a big part of your company’s reputation, so you need them to be honest and professional to protect your company’s name
If you are in the beginning stages of building your business, you are surely excited about getting to the point where you can start raising money from (potential) investors. Maybe you are already at this point in your company, and you would like to know how to succeed at raising capital. Since this is the most critical part of business development, it helps to know how to succeed in communicating with potential (potential) investors. After all, just because you have secured a meeting with a (potential) investor, it does not mean that you are guaranteed to receive their financial investment
Very few organizations actively audit for Fraud. Rather, their auditors are content to conduct financial, operational and compliance audits and to investigate Fraud only when symptoms are so egregious that fraud is suspected.
The five (5) ways to eliminate Fraud opportunities are: (1) having good internal controls; (2) discouraging collusion between employees and customers or vendors and clearly informing vendors and other outside contacts of your company’s policies against fraud; (3) monitoring employees and providing a hotline (whistle-blowing system) for anonymous tips; (4) creating an expectation of punishment; and (5) conducting proactive auditing.
The COVID-19 Pandemic still continues to grow with increased impact on the Dutch economy triggering business continuity and crisis management responses across organizations of all sectors and sizes. At the same time, the financial services industry faces new unique threats from fraud perpetrators and continued expectations from regulators that Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Investigations and Compliance services must be maintained despite the disruption to business-as-usual.
