Procurement fraud was the top threat for many organisations that had faced financial or economical frauds in the past 24 months according to a PwC survey.
PwC's Global Economic Crime Survey 2024 gathered insights from 2,446 organisational leaders worldwide, including 91 from India, to identify the most disruptive economic crimes impacting their sectors and explore strategies for mitigating fraud and ensuring compliance.
More than 50% of the respondents were in top positions and consisted of board members, chief executive officers, managing directors and presidents, PwC said.
"59% of the Indian organisations surveyed said that they had faced financial or economic fraud in the past 24 months. This is 18% higher than the global average of 41% and 7% higher in India when compared to the results of the 2022 edition of the same survey," it said.
The 2024 edition of the survey named procurement fraud as a predominant issue for Indian businesses, with 50% of respondents identifying it as a major problem, marking a significant 21% increase compared to the global sentiment.
In 2022, 47% of businesses identified customer fraud as their primary concern.
According to the survey, 44% of global leaders identified cybercrime as their primary concern.
"Historically, one of the oldest economic crimes, procurement fraud involves illegal manipulation of procurement processes for financial gain. This year, half of our respondents in India identified it as their major worry," Puneet Garkhel, partner and leader, forensic services at PwC India, said.
Being one of the most disruptive economic crimes, procurement fraud cuts across industries and processes, Garkhel added.
While Indian companies are using data analytics to combat procurement fraud with 52% analysing transactions pre-deal and 46% post-deal, only 37% employ real-time payment monitoring with the capacity to block suspicious transactions.
The survey also revealed that about 33% of all economic crimes are related to corruption and bribery, while 26% of the respondents in India found it to be one of the top three disruptive economic crimes in the past 24 months, the PwC survey said.
(With Inputs From PTI)
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