The following are the results of a recent fraud survey.

• 26% of Irish businesses suffered economic crime in the last two years.  This problem is not going away as the results in 2011 were similar.

• Ireland appears to fare better than Europe (35%) and Globally (37%). The concern is how much fraud remains undetected.

• The median range of financial impact to businesses is €75k to €750k.

• Cybercrime is cited as a key risk area and instances of cybercrime are predicted to increase significantly in the future.

• The cost to businesses isn’t just financial, fraud also causes reputational damage, loss of personal identifiable information and service disruption.

• The most common method to uncover fraud was formal fraud risk management controls. Surprisingly few frauds were alerted via whistle-blowing.  This does indicate that other employees may be aware of fraud but are not inclined to inform management.

• The perpetrators of the fraud were employees for 1/3rd of the cases and the remainder were external fraudsters.  The instances of employee fraud has fallen and previously represented 43% of cases.  This does highlight the exposure of businesses to external cybercrime.

What questions do you have?

We are happy to help. Please post your comment below or call Paul Leonard, Partner at Cooney Carey, on 01 677 9000. Alternatively, send him an email: pleonard@cooneycarey.ie

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