Global Economic Crime Survey 2007

October 2007

How prevalent is fraud? What is its real damage? Who perpetrates it? What are the most common problem areas? Are there really any effective ways of mitigating the risk?

PricewaterhouseCoopers has released its fourth Global Economic Crime Survey, based on interviews with more than 5,400 senior executives in more than 40 countries - 302 of these being in the UK. The Survey reveals their experiences with fraud, its causes and values, their responses and recovery actions, and the effectiveness – or otherwise - of fraud prevention measures.

View the video

View/print Crime survey transcript

If you can't watch the video click here to download the latest version of windows media player.

Our Global Survey has found that:

• the average loss from fraud has increased nearly 40% in the last two years - from $1.7 million in 2005 to $2.4 million in 2007
• one out of every two companies worldwide was a victim of economic crime in the past two years
• internal controls are not enough to fight economic crime - controls must be backed by ethical company culture, a broad based risk management programme and a zero tolerance approach towards those who perpetrate it
• 80% of companies surveyed who suffered fraud said they also suffered collateral damage – for example to share prices, customer trust and staff morale

Within the UK, our findings present a mixed picture with both worrying and encouraging trends in the prevalence, detection and prevention of economic crime.

Alarmingly, organisations in the UK consistently underestimate the threat of fraud – only 17% believe that they will be victims whereas 48% actually are.

Our survey also reveals a significant increase in the number of reported frauds, together with the facts that corruption and bribery is the fastest growing form of fraud in the UK; the profile of a ‘typical’ fraudster has changed and doing business within emerging economies opens businesses up to heightened threats of economic crime.

Fraud isn’t going away and no industry is immune.

You can download the Global report, and also our UK Country Report.