Fraud is continuing to increase this year, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.
The report found that 79 percent of anti-fraud professionals have seen an increase in the overall level of fraud as of November, compared to 77 percent in August and 68 percent in May. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents said in November the increase has been significant, compared to 34 percent in August and 25 percent in May.
Steve Lockshin, an entrepreneur and financial advisor, is a principal of AdvicePeriod and a co-founder of estate planning software firm Vanilla.
Prior to co-founding AdvicePeriod, he was chairman of Convergent Wealth Advisors, a company he founded in 1994. Lockshin is widely known for his contemporary approach to wealth advisory as well as his estate-planning knowledge and is a frequent speaker on both topics. He memorialized his concerns about conflicts of interest in the industry in his guide for consumers, "Get Wise to Your Advisor."
Janthana Kaenprakhamroy, the author of Navigating Insurtech and CEO of Tapoly. Forbes listed her as number 6 among the Top 100 Women Founders to watch and recognized her as one of the Top Ten Insurtech Female Influencers by The Insurance Institute. Recently, she was named one of the Most Influential Women in Tech 2023 and received the Innovator of the Year award at the UK FinTech Awards 2023. Furthermore, she was honoured as the winner of the Insurance Leader of the Year by the Women In Finance Awards 2021. Prior to her current roles, she served as a chartered accountant and internal audit director at top-tier investment banks.
Byron Slosar is the Founder & CEO of hellohive, a diversity recruitment and resume technology company. He previously spent 15 years in undergraduate career development and recruiting. He lives in NYC with his husband and son.
Cyber fraud, payment fraud (such as schemes with debit and credit cards) and identity theft are the three top fraud schemes seeing increases, according to anti-fraud professionals.
The largest increase in observed fraud was in financial statement fraud, with 7 percent more anti-fraud professionals reported seeing financial statement fraud in November, compared to August. That could be because as companies continue to see their profits drop, they feel more pressure to cook the books.
The survey also found 77 percent of anti-fraud professionals report that investigating and preventing fraud is more challenging now, while 71 percent said detecting fraud is more challenging as a result of the pandemic.
ACFE members anticipate the fraud trend will continue, even as vaccines have begun rolling out this week in the U.S. Ninety percent of the survey respondents expect a further increase in the level of fraud over the next 12 months, with 44 percent predicting the change is likely to be significant.
Nearly half (48 percent) of the organizations polled expect to increase their investments in anti-fraud technology, and 38 percent intend to raise the use of fraud-related consultants or other external resources. Budgets for anti-fraud training and professional development are experiencing a similar increase (according to 37 percent of the organizations polled), but nearly one-quarter (24 percent) anticipate a decrease in this area. The budget component most likely to see decreases is travel for anti-fraud staff, which shouldn’t be surprising given the plunging levels of air travel in general over this past year, with 38 percent of the survey respondents expecting a reduction in funds for travel in the year ahead.
