Report

Fraudulent times

This report from UK think tank the Social Market Foundation argues that a more concerted and long-term effort against fraud is needed.

We are in the midst of a fraud emergency, but efforts to tackle it have consistently fallen short of reversing its growth in recent years.

This report argues that a more concerted and long-term effort against fraud is needed, requiring a “whole eco-system” approach based on extensive cooperation among all those involved in the fraud chain and between the public and private sectors. Features of such an approach would include enhanced and accelerated data sharing between private-sector organisations and across private and public sectors; more proactive prevention activity by organisations within the fraud chain; improved consumer education efforts; and strong leadership and adequate resourcing from government and industry.

The report makes a number of recommendations to help overcome the obstacles to the development of a “whole eco-system” approach. These include the creation of a single fraud authority to improve private-sector cooperation on counter-fraud issues and lead a national consumer education approach, and supporting the improvement of inter-organisation and public-private data sharing as well as mandating firms to proactively share data.