Thesis Statement
Although the regulations that allow for preventing, identifying, and eliminating fraud in general and financial fraud, in particular, have become considerably more rigid over the past few years in the United Kingdom (Manacorda, 2011), the availability of information technology tools and their integration into the breach of the British laws regarding the subject matter has contributed heavily to the increase in the instances thereof. Enhancement of supervision of the key financial transactions of companies and organizations coupled with an introduction of the corresponding authorities to the IT tools that permit tracking down the instances of fraudulence will contribute to a significant drop in the rates of financial fraud on the state-wide level.
Financial Fraud: Definition
Topic Sentence: The phenomenon a financial fraud, also known as the fraud by abuse of position, is legally defined as the successful attempt of breaking the rules by a person assigned to a certain position and supposed to safeguard the financial interests of another person to dishonestly abuse the position in question and attempts at either making a gain for themselves/their accomplices or to cause a financial loss to the organization that they work for (Fraud Act 2006, 2006, section 4, paragraph 1, subparagraphs a, b) under the Common Law of Great Britain. It should be borne in mind that the concept of financial fraud is rather broad, which predetermines the existence of several types of financial fraud; the full list of the types of financial frauds and their definitions is provided below.
Evidence/Research: To study the issue, one will have to conduct a thorough analysis of the British legislation system, especially the regulations concerning the issue of fraud. Specifically, the Fraud Act 2006 will have to be analyzed in a very detailed manner.
Types of Financial Fraud
Topic Sentence: While the types of financial fraud are extremely numerous and include misappropriation of income or assets (UK fraud cases soar, 2015), the creation of a fictitious relative, identity theft (Systems and methods for segmented risk scoring of identity fraud, 2012), charitable donation scam, telemarketing scams (Embassy of the United States, 2013), fake prises (Get safe online, 2015), phishing, pharming (Almerdas, 2014), investment property fraud (Marget & Peck, 2015), and many others, the financial institution employee fraud is traditionally considered one of the most common types of the phenomenon in question. Apart from the latter, financial institution examiner fraud also occurs quite often.
Recent Instances of Financial Frauds
Topic Sentence: Unfortunately, there have been a number of financial frauds over the past few years. Since the details regarding the cases of fraudulence are open for the public to view and discuss, the cases in question may be employed as the basis for the analysis the weaknesses of the present-day financial security system, as well as the current legislation system. More importantly, the cases under analysis will provide the premises for defining the methods of improving the modern legal system, thus, preventing the instances of financial fraud.
Evidence/Research: The legal cases of the recent financial frauds that have occurred in Great Britain will be identified and considered in the research.
Factors Contributing to the Increase in Financial Fraud Rates
Topic Sentence: The rise in the amount of financial fraudulences can be explained by the availability of information technology tools, which can be used for carrying out illegal activities, as well as the breach in security of the modern financial systems deployed into the operation of the British organisations. Specifically, the problems of the company’s data security and the proper information management approach deserve to be mentioned – because of the issues, which most members of modern organisations face when having to deal with innovative technology, the safety of the company’s data is jeopardised on a daily basis, leaving a range of loopholes for criminals to make efficient use of.
Evidence/Research: The analysis of the key factors will require a study of the scholarly articles on the topic.
Recent Initiatives for Addressing Financial Fraud
Topic Sentence: Much to the credit of the UK government, several projects have been launched in order to put a stop to the increase in financial fraudulence activities. The creation of the so-called Financial Fraud Action UK (Financial Fraud Action UK, 2015) can be interpreted as a major foot forward in identifying the vulnerabilities of modern entrepreneurships and promoting financial safety thereof.
Evidence/Research: An analysis of the organisation’s official site will be carried out.
Recent Identifications of Financial Frauds
Topic Sentence: The creation of Britain’s Fraud Office seems to have brought impressive results, as the organisation analyzed the infamous case of Tesco’s financial fraud (Maidmen & Holton, 2014).
Evidence/Research: The analysis of the Tesco case will be conducted based on the records of the court proceedings and the related resources. Specifically, the role of Britain’s Fraud Office in the increase of the case’s significance will be determined in the course of the literature review and the further discussion.
References
Almerdas, A (2014) The criminalisation of identity theft under the Saudi anti-cybercrime law 2007. Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology 9(2): 80–93.
Embassy of the United States (2013) U.S. Embassy. Web.
Financial Fraud Action UK (2015). Police. Web.
Fraud Act 2006 (2006) The National Archives. Web.
Get safe online (2015) Aberdeenshire Council. Web.
Maidmen, N & Holton, K (2014) Britain’s Fraud Office launches probe into Tesco accounting scandal. Reuters. Web.
Manacorda, S (2011) Cibercriminality: finding a balance between freedom and security. London, UK: ISPAC.
Marget, J E & Peck, J (2015) Fraud in financial statements. London, UK: Routledge.
Systems and methods for segmented risk scoring of identity fraud. (2012) Google Patents. Web.
UK fraud cases soar (2015) Economia. Web.