DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--250 global financial crime professionals say measures taken by their organizations to reduce costs in the wake of last year’s financial crisis are leaving them and their customers increasingly vulnerable to criminal attack.

Half of respondents in Norkom’s fourth annual survey of financial crime fighting activities in the world’s banks say that cuts to their own departmental spending plans are weakening their ability to keep pace with a rising tide of criminal attack. 12% say they’ve lost a quarter of their anti-money laundering (AML) budget, while the figure is only slightly lower for fraud at 9%.

At the same time, 71% of respondents say fraud attacks against their business have increased over the past year, with 67% claiming their financial losses to fraud have grown over the same period. For almost a quarter (22%), that growth has been greater than one-fifth.

“It’s ironic that the very actions banks are taking to shore up their damaged finances may sabotage their chances of recovery,” says David Dixon, Norkom’s Director of Global Solutions. “However, there is clear evidence that advanced crime fighting approaches, underpinned by consolidated technologies, can reduce fraud losses and, simultaneously, reduce operating costs in crime fighting departments.”

This year’s research revealed that 79% of respondents using a consolidated technology approach claim it allowed them to improve their ‘percentage of fraud detected’ performance (the amount of fraud detected and prevented as a proportion of total fraud reported to them by their customers), while 63% have also seen their operating costs decrease.

Additionally, 56% of all companies using common case and workflow management tools within their fraud technology solutions are achieving dramatic reductions in their fraud losses, thanks to the ability it gives them to take action quickly to stop crime in its tracks.

42% of respondents say they now have a single enterprise-wide software solution to detect and investigate AML; 17%, for fraud. 48% of the remainder have deployed an overarching technology that consolidates information from their different detection systems in order to enhance investigation management. A further 30% plan to implement such technology within 12 to 24 months.

“Two lessons emerge from this research,” says Dixon. “Firstly, attempts to save money by cutting financial crime budgets are likely to be counter-productive. Secondly, fraud losses can be reduced through the use of consolidating technologies which, in turn, allow business processes to be streamlined. So, if the twin imperatives are to cut losses and stem costs, there’s good news on both fronts.”

Download a free copy of ‘Fighting crime – defending the bottom line’ by logging onto http://www.norkom.com/press/whitepapers.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

Research methodology

This report is based upon original research conducted among senior executives from a representative sample of international financial institutions, covering the full spectrum of financial services including retail banks, commercial banks and integrated financial services companies. 41% of organizations polled had assets between US$10 billion and US$500 billion; 12% had assets over US$500 billion.

About Norkom Technologies (www.norkom.com)

Norkom Technologies (AIM: NORK.L, IEX: NORK.IE) enables financial organizations to take intelligent action, control defenses, and evolve strategies against fraud, money laundering, and other types of financial crime.