 |
Internal fraud is a growing concern for companies, as citied by 38% of respondents in Bottomline Technologies’ report UK Business Payments Barometer 2017.
The figure is a sharp increase on the 13% of respondents who considered it an issue in the 2016 survey by the business payment technology company.
The survey also found that 56% of companies are unaware if they have been the victim of payment fraud, and the need for greater security was found to be the biggest driver for change in the payments industry for the second year running.
With a number of high-profile cases involving internal fraud in recent years, it is a legitimate concern.
In 2015, an employee at BMW in the UK was found guilty of stealing £5.9 million from the company over a four-year period. The money was taken in 59 separate transactions listing the employee’s own bank account details under that of a supplier. The true recipient of the funds was only discovered after an audit.
More recently, the South Korean subsidiary of Swiss company ABB fell victim to a treasurer taking $31 million, spread over 73 transactions.