Economic crimes such as fraud are on the rise, if recent reports are anything to go by. The first, by industry group Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK), looks at the levels of card and online banking fraud, while the second, by PwC, assesses economic crime, including fraud, against financial services organisations.
Card & Online Banking Fraud
The FFA UK figures reveal that:
- Fraud losses on UK cards in 2013 increased by 16% on the previous year to £450.4 million, although this is still 26% lower than 2008’s peak fraud figure.
- Total spending on all debit and credit cards increased by 6.1% over the year to £532 billion.
- Losses on remote card purchases (those made online, over the telephone or by mail order) increased by 22% to £301.1 million in 2013, from £246.0 million in 2012.
- Online fraud against UK retailers totalled an estimated £105.5 million in 2013 – up 4% on the previous year.
- Fraud against online retailers based overseas increased by 48% to an estimated £57.8 million.
- Online banking fraud has increased by 3% to £40.9 million from £39.6 million in 2012.
- Telephone banking fraud has fallen 8% to £11.6 million from £12.6 million in 2012.
- Cheque fraud losses fell 22% to £27.5 million from £35.1 million in 2012.
Crime Against the Financial Services Sector
According to PwC, economic crime as a whole is on the rise. The assurance, tax and advisory group recently published a report, based on its Global Economic Crime Survey 2014, looking at the impact of crime on businesses in general. It has now issued a further report looking specifically at the financial services sector.
This reveals that 45% of financial services respondents to the survey said they were victims of fraud, compared with 34% across all other industries. Of these, 21% had been affected by accounting fraud. The most common type of economic crime perpetrated against financial services firms was, however, theft, which was reported by 67% of respondents. Other reported crimes were:
- Cybercrime (39%)
- Money laundering (24%)
- Bribery and corruption (20%)
Tackling EU Budget Fraud
Given the apparently increasing incidence of economic crime, it is not surprising that countries and organisations are taking coordinated action to tackle the problem.
In Europe, for example, plans are gathering pace to prevent fraud taking place against the EU budget. Action is needed, says the European Commission, because conviction rates for fraud offences against EU resources greatly vary across the EU. Only around 45.7% of cases transferred to Member States are apparently followed up by national judicial authorities and the conviction rate of of these is on average just 42.3%.
European Public Prosecutor’s Office
The European Commission has therefore proposed the creation of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which would have the exclusive task of investigating and prosecuting crimes affecting the EU budget.
The proposals were originally put forward in July last year, and have recently received the backing of the European Parliament. However, the UK, Denmark and Ireland have indicated that they will not be participating in the European Public Prosecutor's Office.
Contact Lewis Nedas’ Criminal Lawyers in London
For specialist legal advice in defending a charge of fraud please contact our solicitors Jeffrey Lewis or Siobhain Egan on 020 7387 2032 or complete our online enquiry form here.
This blog post is intended as a news item only - no connection between Lewis Nedas and the parties concerned is intended or implied.
