Fraud is big business, and one that is extremely damaging to business.
Undetected fraud could amount to as much again. Figures vary little across the different business sectors, although the number and relative sizes of frauds varies. In Banking, major losses come through a small number of large frauds, whereas in Retail, Telecommunications and the Government, the converse tends to be true. In insurance there is a mixture of large and small frauds, depending on the type of insurance market and the scale of the risks that are underwritten. The amount of fraud has been rising in most organisations over the last five years and, more worrying, it is expected to continue to rise.