Financial Crime World

Banking Industry Fraud Statistics Reveal Shocking Trends in South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has released a report highlighting disturbing trends in banking industry fraud statistics in South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. The report emphasizes the importance of ensuring that firms regulated by the FCA are effective in preventing financial crime through sound controls.

Key Findings

  • The number of firms reporting automated sanctions screening has increased by 16.5% over the past three years.
  • However, the investment management sector still lags behind, with the highest number of firms not using automatic screening.
  • Retail banking firms have reported approximately 390,000 high-risk customers in 2019/2020, which is almost half of all high-risk customers reported by all firms.

Suspicious Activity Reports

  • The number of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) reported to the National Crime Agency has increased significantly, from 394,048 in 2017/2018 to 480,202 in 2019/2020. This represents a 22% increase over three years.

Financial Crime Roles

  • Firms which submitted the REP-CRIM collectively employed approximately 17,000 full-time equivalent staff in financial crime roles in 2019/2020, compared to approximately 15,700 in 2017/2018.

Customer Exits

  • A total of 761,437 customers were exited during the 2019/2020 reporting period, which is more than double the number in the previous year. This represents about 0.16% of total customers across all submissions that year.
  • Retail lending and retail banking sectors have exited the most customers for each of those years.

Conclusion

The report aims to provide insights on trends and developments in banking industry fraud statistics in South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, which should help inform the arrangements and risks of firms operating in these jurisdictions.