Internal Fraud: Working with the Thief from Within

by Barry Thompson, BOL Guru

Recently, I was asked to address a Fraud and Anti-Money Laundering Conference for the European Financial Marketing Association in Brussels, Belgium. The topic was "Internal Fraud: Working with the Thief from Within," and covered the steps every institution should take to protect themselves against internal embezzlement.

Ultimately, my final recommendation regarding internal embezzlement was that institutions fire and prosecute perpetrators. You may, however, be surprised to discover that attendees didn't consider this a practical solution to the problem. In fact, in many European countries financial institutions never dismiss internal embezzlers; instead, they are reassigned to non-critical duties. The reason for this will be even more startling to Americans: unions won't allow financial institutions to remove the offenders. Only embezzlers who have stolen millions of Euros through their scams are in danger of losing their jobs.

This just goes to show that banking around the world is different and international banks like ING Bank, which is located in 61 countries, must stay on top of all of these idiosyncrasies.


BOL Guru Barry Thompson speaking in Belgium

First published on BankersOnline.com 2/23/04