Economic crimes down in Thailand says PwC survey

Economic crimes and corruption have fallen in Thailand over the past two years through greater public-private cooperation, but computer crimes increased in line with global trends, according to a bi-annual global survey on economic crime released last week by United States-based Price Watershouse Coopers (PwC), a multinational accounting and management firm.

PwC’s Global Economic Crime Survey 2016 found that Thailand’s rate of corruption stood at 26 percent (the percentage of respondents that reported it), down from the 37 percent recorded during the firm’s last survey in 2014. Bribery was reported by 19 percent of respondents, a sharp decline from the 39 percent of the last survey.

Computer crime in Thailand was calculated at 24 percent, which was higher than two years ago but is lower than the world average of 32 percent. Globally, however, PwC said that cybercrime has continued to escalate, to the point that it has now become the second-most reported economic crime among those surveyed. The survey focused on cybercrime, ethics and compliance programs, and anti-money laundering.

The data shows a widespread lack of preparedness, PwC reported, with 32 percent of organizations affected, 34 percent believing they will be affected in the next two years, and only 37 percent having a cyber incident response plan. “Among survey respondents, reputational damage was considered the most damaging impact of a cyber breach,” the report said.

In Thailand, 39 percent of companies that responded said they had been victims of fraud during the past year, with asset misappropriation the most common crime and employees most often being the perpetrators.

“Organizations need to step up their corporate anti-fraud measures to prevent, detect and combat such abuses,” said Vorapong Sutanont, forensics partner at PwC Consulting (Thailand).

The survey was based on 6,337 respondents in 115 countries with questions asked in 17 different languages. Of the companies that took part, 35 percent were in the industrial sector, 24 percent in financial services, 14 percent were consumer-oriented, 7 percent were in technology, 6 percent in professional services and 13 percent were described as ‘other.’

The report noted that Thailand had its highest rate of survey respondents this year with 261, up from only 76 in the last survey. It also said that the range of organizations taking part grew, with stock market listed companies joining private and public organizations to give responses.

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