It is very sobering that in fraud prevention month a new survey has shown identity fraud has reached record levels.
The report from respected fraud prevention organisation Cifas, using statistics from 277 banks and businesses, show the problem in Britain has hit a peak since figures started being compiled 13 years ago.
In 2016 there were 172,919 incidents of identity fraud, which represents 53.3% of all fraud recorded by Cifas, of which 88% occurred online.
City of London Police Commander Chris Greany, who is national co-ordinator for economic crime, said: “With close to half of all crime now either fraud or cybercrime we all need to make sure we protect our identity.”
It is a message which is aimed at educating individuals, but also businesses.
It also comes shortly after The Crime Survey for England and Wales, released a few weeks ago, showed an estimated 3.6 million cases of fraud and two million computer misuse offences in the UK.
Sadly it is an uphill battle we all face. In the middle of last year consumer credit reporting business Experian said fraud costs the UK economy £193bn a year. It seems now that figure is on the low side.
Helping businesses to stay on top of this major problem we at Altior have teamed up with Mishcon de Reya to help address the threat. We are delivering the ACFE (The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners) intensive four day course, which will help give businesses the knowledge to proactively address this continuing challenge.
Education on how to tackle fraud is the major weapon and will continue to be as criminals will always look for the soft targets, be it businesses or individuals.
Becoming accredited by the ACFE is a wise step to help protect businesses in this much called for area of intelligence.
The course costs £2,200 and subjects taught will include fraud investigation techniques, the law relating to fraud and fraud prevention and deterrence.
We at Altior and our partners in this venture Mishcon de Reya are doing our best to deliver a course that makes tackling such a huge subject as relevant and straightforward as possible.
The course condenses the extensive material on how to tackle fraud and we are sure many of you will agree a classroom situation, where many professionals are working and learning together to become Certified Fraud Examiner’s is the best environment to tackle this issue.
New figures and reports on fraud will be par for the course in life going forwards and not tackling the issue robustly is a folly that industry cannot afford.
The future is here and we have to accept the negative side of business as well as the good. All of us will continually have to keep this issue at the front of our mind. Arming ourselves with the necessary knowledge to tackle this problem is the only answer.