Services Fraud Prevention

Here are some tips which may help to reduce the risk of you being party to a fraud, money laundering or other undesirable activity:-

Willing to pay over the odds for services provided;
Willingness to accept low or even negative returns;
Reluctance to provide basic information to verify identity, address, business, officers, activities, etc;
Transactions do not make commercial sense;
History of frequent movement between financial services providers;
Large numbers of small payments in and large payments out with average balance remaining low;
Inactive account suddenly becomes active;
Transactions out of character with business expected or with history of relationship;
Corporate accounts where transactions are frequently in cash.

Ensure staff are trained;
If something does not make sense ask;
Have a compliance manual and ensure it is followed;
Verify identity by sight of original passport or certified copy- do not accept plain photocopies;
Take references;
If a banking reference is from a bank you have never heard of check it out or ask for another reference;
Ensure two senior people have to be involved in the take on of new business;
Separate duties for transactions so no single person alone can effect large transfers of funds;
Have a system for monitoring large transactions;
Periodically review client files;
Assess new staff properly, take references and check qualifications;
Be vigilant;
If you are caught out once, you cannot afford to be again as this may call into question your fitness and properness. You should get someone to look at your internal controls to reduce the risk of the same thing happening again.