Friday, August 24, 2012

IFCTF 2012 to address insurance fraud, cyber secruity issues

For the second time around, the Accounting Research Institute (ARI) will be collaborating closely with the Compliance Officer Networking Group (CONG), financial institutions and other agencies to co-organize the International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing 2012 (IFCTF 2012).  Themed "Compliance, Challenges and Effectiveness: The Next Level", IFCTF 2012 is a continuance from the previous 2011's "Raising The Bar In Compliance And Enforcement".  In a recent interview with Bernama, CONG Chairman, Mad Yusof Yazid said that IFCTF 2012 will address insurance fraud, cyber security and cash movement.  The inclusion of cyber security into the conference was due to the growing threat especially of Internet scams in the country involving financial institutions.  "The inclusion of insurance fraud will give a better scope and coverage of the financial sectors as the insurance sector is another growing area of fraud and potential anti-money laundering target," he said. It would also increase the industry awareness towards insurance fraud and threat and able to share the best practices from other parts of the world in terms of managing and detecting fraud and money laundering. During the event, he said there would also be a session to discuss the implementation of the new guidelines by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body to develop policies to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. "It will be a good avenue for the regulators and also the banks to actually to understand how the new recommendations will affect us and find the best way to execute it, he said.  CONG has invited up to 40 speakers to give presentations including prominent figures from the World Bank, Asia Pacific Group (APG), AUSTRAC Australia, Royal Customs of United Kingdom, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Royal Malaysian Customs, Security Commission, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, representatives from universities and notable compliance officers from other parts of the world such as Hong Kong.  IFCTF 2012 will he held on 24-25 September at the Shangri La Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.