39% of Asia-Pac firms hit by economic crime: Survey

THIRTY-NINE per cent of businesses in the Asia-Pacific have suffered from economic crime in the last two years with an average recovery on loss of 20% or less, a survey showed. 

The PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Economic Crime Survey 2002, one of the most comprehensive assessments of the nature and impact of fraud around the world, showed that larger companies with over 1,000 employees in a country were most vulnerable to fraud with 52% reporting crime in the past two years. 

This compares with just 37% of smaller companies reporting fraud. 

A majority of companies in the region expected fraud to increase in the next five years and 35% of firms that responded expected their greatest fraud risk to continue to be asset misappropriation. 

Financial services firms reported more incidence of fraud than companies in any other industry. 

One in six banks worldwide reported uncovering money laundering during the previous two years due to improved control and compliance systems and ongoing efforts to raise awareness of money laundering. 

In the region, manufacturing and industrial products industries were highly susceptible to economic crime especially in product piracy. 

In the next five years in the region, cyber-crime, corruption and bribery and product piracy have been identified as major concerns for organisations. 

Asset misappropriation and financial misrepresentation have been identified as significant risks and were far more widespread across the entire spectrum of business and industry types. – Bernama