'Fighting Financial Crime' conference concludes
MUSCAT -- The two-day 'Fighting Financial Crime' conference hosted for the second year running by Bank Muscat in association with the Royal Oman Police (ROP) concluded yesterday with a call to identify challenges arising from technology and globalisation so as to effectively tackle modern trends in financial crime. The conference noted that technology is a double-edged sword offering immense advantages on the one hand and complex challenges on the other. Globalisation also has great advantages in bringing efforts together across the world to tackle financial crime while perpetration of fraud also assumes global scale inflicting huge losses to organisations and nations within a matter of seconds.
Similarly, the conference noted: There is no shortage of information on fraud, which is freely available to criminals and that lack of public awareness is an area of concern and each one has a role to raise awareness on financial crime in their respective area of operations. It called for stricter penalties for fraudsters to serve as deterrence and urged practitioners in the financial sector to develop professional qualifications and experience through certified courses. The conference also noted: Criminals work 24/7, hence everyone needs to remain alert and cooperate with authorities and organisations to minimise financial fraud. With technological advancement, the ability to detect fraud has significantly increased, correspondingly the number of detected crimes has increased as there is a better and quicker mechanism to detect financial fraud.
Further, to effectively mitigate financial crime, companies must establish a code of ethics, develop fraud policies and invest in a communication and training programme on fraud and corporate fraud policies, for all employees. They also should ensure proper segregation of duties for key activities and functions, besides setting up appropriate recruitment procedures to select the right candidates. Establishments should know key fraud risks and controls and monitor them regularly. They must also set up a whistle blower hotline and pursue sound recruitment policies and psychometric testing as well as develop a fraud risk assessment process.
A large turnout of senior representatives from the ROP, Central Bank of Oman, Capital Market Authority, Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA), corporates, banking establishments and media personnel attended the conference. The highlight of the concluding day's proceedings included presentation on: 'Omani currency forgery' by Lt Col Abdullah Ali Nasser Al Kalbani, Director of Forensic Laboratory, ROP; 'New fraud patterns through communication channel' by Hilal Al Siyabi, Manager of International Affairs and Media, TRA; 'Control weakness and fraudsters -- The lethal combination' by Mubeen Khan, Senior Manager Assurance and Advisory, Deloitte; and 'Challenges of working with other international agencies' by Lt Col Ahmed bin Bakhit al Shanfari, Director of Interpol Muscat at the Directorate-General of Investigations, Interpol.
The conference further noted that law enforcement agencies, regulators and financial institutions need to come together to form a solid front against financial crimes, which are becoming more sophisticated and complicated, hence everyone must be prepared to counter these challenges. And that all financial organisations should have an anti-money laundering (AML) policy to fight against financial crimes and financing of terrorism. Failure to comply with AML laws and breaches of financial sanctions can have serious consequences. Bribery and corruption was also identified as a major cause for financial crimes.
Thomas Totton, General Manager -- Internal Audit, said: "Bank Muscat is proud to host the Fighting Financial Crime conference for the second year running in association with the ROP. This year's conference surpassed expectations at all levels, reflecting excellent cooperation between the bank, ROP, TRA and the Public Prosecution. With excellent content, the conference was a complete success. The discussions were open and frank and the exchange of views and quality of presentations helped the participants to benefit from relevant information which will be useful in improving the mechanism to fight financial crime. The conference was a tremendous success and we are delighted to present high quality experience and content from which all participants have learnt much. Bank Muscat looks forward to playing a bigger role as there is significant demand for such learning experiences. The bank has developed expertise in tackling financial crime and is committed to complementing government efforts in providing protection and security for the country's financial assets."
Participants acknowledged that they immensely benefited from the conference which focused on all relevant issues relating to financial crimes. "This was an excellent opportunity to update ourselves and learn from the presentations made by experts in this field. We thank and congratulate Bank Muscat and the ROP for this commendable initiative."
© Oman Daily Observer 2013
