The threat of fraud is growing, making fraud detection a crucial stake for any company. Last year, more companies reported experiencing corporate fraud than in the last twenty years of research. While it’s simple to recognize the threat, it’s also obvious that fraud detection isn’t the easiest thing to manage. But without an industry-wide, tried and tested recipe for success, it’s usually up to you and your team members to create your anti-fraud strategy. When the cost of mistakes is so high, trial and error just isn’t good enough. So in this piece, we’re going through the best fraud detection and prevention strategies. Plus, you’ll learn how to overcome the most common challenges associated with protecting an organization from fraud.
Trustpair is a leading anti-fraud platform that works with large organizations to mitigate the risks of financial fraud. Detecting fraud automatically, we use data analysis to spot high-risk cases and ensure they are continually supervised. We notify your team in real time when suspicious activity occurs. Eliminate fraud and protect your company against unauthorized activities with Trustpair. Want to learn more? Contact one of our experts right away!
What are the different types of business fraud?
Realistically, there are hundreds of white-collar crimes that fraudsters can commit to infiltrate your business and access funds. But even though new technologies are being created all the time, there are some common scams that criminals use to defraud businesses.
Here they are:
- Money laundering: hiding, moving, and disguising ‘dirty’ money to make it look legitimate. For example, a potential supplier may edit their accounting books so that their financials appear better, making themselves more attractive to work with. Without doing due diligence, your people would be left in the dark about this and take on risks.
- Invoice fraud: criminals impersonate your suppliers and send invoices for goods you haven’t received or intercept accurate invoices and change the bank details
- CEO fraud: fraudsters impersonate senior leadership and ask for immediate payment into an account. Unfortunately, this type of fraud preys on vulnerable employees and abuses their trust. That’s why it’s useful to train your people against CEO fraud specifically.
- Bank statement and wire transfer fraud: also known as ‘phishing scams’, criminals emails under false pretenses asking for sensitive company information or money transferred
Common scams that aren’t specific to B2B situations also include card fraud, identity theft, an unexplained chargeback, and the misuse of data. While some fraudulent transaction cases are due to carelessness, fraud risk management is usually about staying vigilant and actively fighting fraud threats.
One of the most famous examples of money laundering occurred only recently.
FTX, a crypto exchange that was launched in 2019 found itself in some trouble in 2022. The SEC found that the co-owner had previously opened a hedge fund, and had been funneling FTX investor money into the hedge fund. Money was used to buy personal properties for the co-founder in Barbados, as well as funding political causes.
The SEC found that over $1.8 billion was owed to FTX investors, and the company went bankrupt. The new CEO called what happened, “a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information”.
Therefore, it’s clear that even in this day and age, fraudsters can successfully defraud financial institutions, companies, and investors out of millions. Fraud detection measures are key in warding off criminals and spotting suspicious activity as it happens.
What’s the cost of poor fraud detection?
It’s obvious to most that without fraud detection software in place, businesses are left exposed to all types of fraud. But these days, it’s actually the third-party social platforms that you work with that can make your company more vulnerable and compromised to financial crimes. Therefore, it’s all about choosing the right partner platforms that clearly value the security of themselves and their collaborators.
According to PWC’s 2022 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Report, 51% of organizations experienced fraud in the past two years. What’s worse, this is higher than any other year in the twenty years of research we have available.
Do you want to learn more about enterprise fraud and how to fight it? Check out our latest study about fraud trends and what to do about it.
Why is business fraud suddenly spiking?
40% of all fraud cases have been experienced through breaches on external platforms. Since the average company works with four different platforms, it’s clear that even internal controls can’t protect the vulnerabilities of external programs.
At the bottom line, this means that without a specific fraud detection strategy, your team can’t sufficiently protect its organization from fraudsters. This means having the ability to centralize processes and having a single overview of your payment chain. Those with multiple – and sometimes insecure – platforms, switching between dashboards are more likely to be left exposed.
Poor fraud detection leads to risks of huge financial losses. But it’s not just about the money. Studies show that the erosion of trust becomes so large, that many experience ongoing communication issues with customers, straining the relationships.
For example, imagine you think you’ve paid a supplier, but in reality, a fraudster intercepted the invoice and changed the payment details. Without realizing what’s happened, all your supplier knows is that they haven’t been paid, and they don’t understand what’s taking so long. This can create a huge strain on the commercial relationship, since an investigation is likely to take even more time, and your supplier has already held up their end of the bargain.
But by staying on the right side of regulation and setting up proper fraud detection measures, you’ll set the company up to scale without stumbling blocks. Leading to revenue retention and happy customers.
Fraud prevention vs fraud detection
It’s important to note the difference between fraud prevention and fraud detection. Whichever you choose to focus on will impact your anti-fraud strategy and change the way that your team tackles the risk of fraud.
Fraud prevention is the act of trying to stop fraud before it happens. An example of fraud prevention includes deterrence measures, such as imprisonment and fines.
Fraud detection is the act of finding fraud as it happens. An example of fraud detection includes software that verifies the identity of your customers.
However, the best solution is to combine both fraud detection and prevention. Trustpair can help you by monitoring the risks associated with your third parties and safeguarding your own operations through our highly secure platform.
What are the best fraud detection and prevention techniques?
Since fraudsters continue to find new ways to attack businesses, new best practices to fight fraud are also continuing to emerge. Here are three of the best ways to prevent and detect corporate fraud:
- Software
- Due Diligence
- Cybersecurity training
Anti-fraud software for fraud detection
Working with a specialized anti-fraud platform like Trustpair is a no-brainer for large enterprises. This software has the ability to identify, investigate, and continually monitor third-party risks, as well as secure your own business activities against fraudsters.
In fact, you’ll get a real-time warning in case of any attempt at fraud. Plus, just knowing that your team has fraud control in hand means that you aren’t wasting time on tedious manual checks and cumbersome audits before getting those payments processed.
Trustpair’s global database of sources allows your company to access the richest and most thorough data. The power of AI and data science are used to assess the risks, spot fraud patterns and give reliable insights.
With integration capabilities, Trustpair’s benefits extend across the other platforms you work with – leaving no room for fraudsters. We integrate with the likes of SAP, Sage, Oracle, Coupa, Windows, Esker, and more. It means that your people can develop their own internal controls and work with the platform to close any gaps.
In fact, it’s why we’ve been 100% effective in blocking fraud, saving our customers over $60 million since we began. Demo Trustpair’s leading anti-fraud platform today.
Due diligence for fraud detection
A full due diligence routine can help prevent fraud, especially when you’re working with international contracts.
It’s easy to hit a wall when doing a background search on potential new suppliers or customers. Because regulations vary around the world, many companies won’t be required to publish certain information.
But this can create a hurdle in your anti-fraud process, and lead to your organization taking on risks associated with scams. Instead, building a due diligence process that requires certain information before validating a potential partner is a great way to protect your business.
For example, by verifying the financial details of a third party, you access the history of their activity and can spot suspicious activities. Furthermore, your company can choose to move ahead with 100% confidence after being well-informed and managing any risks. The best way to do that? Using software that does it for you.
By using software, you don’t need to spend even a minute on due diligence. It’s handled automatically with both internal and external blacklists, so there’s really no way to move forward with accounts that are banned.
Cybersecurity training
Not only is it important to have the right software and processes in place to fight online fraud, but it’s also key to empowering your staff to spot and flag suspicious behaviors. This is especially important because fraudsters can target anyone in the company, not just the management team.
Cybersecurity training can include the likes of:
- new scam awareness
- how to react if you’re suspicious of fraud
- the approval process for sending payments
Security awareness training, as it’s also known, helps staff to stay conscious about how their actions affect the overall security of the company. The risk of susceptibility to phishing has been known to be reduced from 60% to just 10% over the course of a year. This is why it’s important to empower staff with cybersecurity education on a regular basis.
Challenges of fraud detection and prevention
It’s not easy, otherwise over $4.7 trillion wouldn’t have been lost by businesses last year. But as a company that’s protected clients from 100% of fraud attempts, we at Trustpair can lend some expertise.
False positives can hurt your business
Unfortunately, jumping the gun on suspicious activity can be almost as harmful as genuine fraud attempts. This is because false positives affect the experience that your customers or suppliers can have with you, straining the relationship.
Even a single instance of false positive fraud tends to have a knock-on effect. Your people can become complacent after feeling like they’ve overreacted, and be insensitive to future suspicious activity. That’s why it’s even more crucial to have a soundproof system in place.
No one-size-fits-all
Every business is different, so why shouldn’t your fraud detection solution be an exact fit for your organization? In most cases, interdepartmental controls can differ as systems and processes aren’t centralized across the company.
Unfortunately, if your organization develops an ill-fitting strategy, you risk leaving vulnerabilities exposed. It’s almost like an invitation for fraudsters.
To fight this, you should customize the strategy to your exact needs. This means adapting based on location, size, departmental specifics and more. Fortunately, Trustpair offers a solution that can be personalized to the structure and operations of the business.
Friction in your customers’ journey
When done poorly, fraud detection measures can be cumbersome. Applying this to your customer journey can reduce satisfaction since it adds unnecessary friction.
For example, relying on a manual check for suspicious activity can delay the arrival of your product to customers, or hinder the operations of suppliers. Eventually, this is likely to force your partners to move their business elsewhere. B2B fraud detection needs to be a smoother process to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with daily operations.
Working with a fraud detection and prevention solution helps
Here’s the cruel thing about fraud prevention: no matter your company’s intentions and processes, it’s almost impossible to do alone.
So those who do it best rely on collaborations with sources from all around the world.
Connecting your departments creates a centralized anti-fraud strategy that closes the gaps in your systems. Fortunately, using an anti-fraud platform like Trustpair can help you do just that.
We can give you the ability to manage vendor data seamlessly and operate with secure payment processes. Plus, validate potential partners instantly, all while complying with regulations in your jurisdiction. In the US, that means your organization can get on its way to becoming SOX law compliant without having to lift a finger.
When we’re talking about business fraud, there’s never a guarantee. But with our track record, wouldn’t you want to give your company the most risk-free approach to fraud?
Demo the Trustpair anti-fraud platform today.
To conclude:
- Identifying fraud is getting harder every day: scammers are getting more sophisticated, relying on personal information and social-engineering to target companies. Any company can be at risk for fraud.
- Security and fraud go hand in hand, where one is weak, the other is strong. This is especially true when it comes to online fraudulent activity.
- Use risk analytics to identify anomalies, spot red flags, and strengthen detection measures
- Regular auditing of your processes can identify the risk for new fraud techniques and gaps in your ability to detect fraud.
- Initial and ongoing supplier authentication can help reduce fraud attempts
- Safeguard your credit card transactions with secure payment methods to avoid payment fraud
