Background: Frauds reported by banks and financial institutions increased 159% by value to Rs 1.85 lakh crore from Rs 71,543 crore in 2018-19. By volume, the increase in 2019-20 was 28% (8,707 cases) as per data released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its annual report. The frauds emanated largely from the loan portfolios (98 %). Moreover, lags in detection (and consequent reporting) of frauds averaged 24 months with the gap widening to 63 months for large value frauds of more than Rs.100 crores.

The size and volume of frauds reported is reflective of the inadequacies in fraud and crime risk mitigation despite the adoption and use of newer controls, technologies and surveillance systems. Apart from the absence of a robust Early Warning System (EWS), the poor outcomes could be because the investigation exercises did not provide actionable feedback for strengthening internal controls and fraud risk management or the feedback though actionable was not used to design robust surveillance & warning systems aided by durable institutional memory.

Objective of the Program: This CAFRAL Virtual Learning Program will cover the regulatory and supervisory developments in relation to fraud and financial crime, revisit the basics of fraud & financial crime investigations and explore the emerging trends in fraud risk management, more particularly the use of EWS for prevention and detection.  This VLP will, among others, focus on the need to build fraud prevention capacity of banks based on substantive outcomes of investigations and forensic audits

Coverage

1.    Trends in financial frauds and crimes: Dimensions & directions

2.    Regulatory developments and supervisory concerns on financial crimes and frauds

3.    Fraud risk management : Implementing an effective Early Warning System (EWS)

4.    Operational Risk Management: How can it mitigate financial crime and fraud risk

5.    Investigation of financial frauds and crimes: Tools, techniques and technologies

6.    Analysis of fraud cases: Lessons learnt & forgotten

7.    Fraud and Money Laundering: Patterns, complexities and connections

8.    Forensic investigations: Use of technology in forensic audit

9.    Forensic Accounting: How is it different from forensic audit and how to use it for fraud prevention