Can alert models for fraud protect the elderly clients of a financial institution?

ABSTRACT

Using account-level transaction data at a major financial institution, we predict the incidence of suspicious activity that can be related to the external financial fraud of its elderly clients. The data consists of over 5 million accounts of clients aged 70 years and older, and over 250 million transactions extending from January 2015 to August 2016. Our main focus is to improve the detection of alerts within a proprietorial transaction monitoring system. Using logistic regression, random forest and support vector machine learning techniques, together with corrections for imbalanced alert samples, we provide a new alert model for the protection of elderly clients at a financial institution, with out-of-sample predictive accuracy. Our findings show the relative influence of client traits and account activity in our select external fraud alert models.     

The Market's Valuation of Fraudulently Reported Earnings

This study examines the market valuation of accounting earnings during the period before it is publicly revealed that the earnings are fraudulent. Using both cross‐sectional and time‐series valuation models, we first find that the market accords less weight to earnings when the accounting numbers are fraudulent. We also show that the market better anticipates the presence of fraud when there is information in the public domain indicating a high ex‐ante risk of fraud. Our findings suggest that investors are able to accurately assess the probability of fraud and that such assessments affect the market's valuation of earnings even before it is publicly announced that fraud has occurred.     

Management's Materiality Criteria of Internal Control Weaknesses and Corporate Fraud: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the determinants and consequence of Chinese listed companies' first-time decisions on materiality criteria for internal control weaknesses, which have been observable beginning from the 2011 annual report. Although pretax income is most commonly used as the benchmark for materiality, revenue is also used as a popular alternative. Revenue is more susceptible to manipulation, as it has a much larger financial amount than pretax income. We argue that unethical managers prefer not to disclose material weaknesses by manipulating the materiality criteria to justify non-disclosure of a potentially material weakness. Consistent with this opportunistic incentive, we find that when companies committed fraud in the previous year that remains undetected, their management is more likely to use revenue (rather than pretax income) as the first-time benchmark and to set a higher revenue-based materiality threshold as well. Moreover, once the materiality metrics are set, the first-time revenue-based materiality threshold is significantly and positively associated with subsequent incidence of corporate fraud, which suggests that setting deviant and loose materiality metrics leaves room for the management to engage in future misconduct.     

Forensic accounting services in English local government and the counter-fraud agenda

ABSTRACT

Fraud is a growing challenge for English local government, yet the resources and support local authorities (LAs) have available to prevent, detect and investigate it are limited. Forensic accounting services (FAS) provided by external specialist private sector firms, particularly those undertaking mandatory external audit, might be one solution. Research reported in this paper suggests, however, that existing English LA users are not all convinced. Nevertheless, better awareness and understanding of what FAS have to offer, perhaps through case studies of successful implementation, would be a valuable contribution to helping local government enhance its counter-fraud capabilities and make informed decisions about how best to meet the increasingly complex fraud challenge.     

The Effectiveness of White‐Collar Crime Enforcement: Evidence from the War on Terror

This paper analyzes the impact of changes in regulatory priorities and resource allocation on criminal enforcement of white‐collar criminal activities. Using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a shock to the FBI's priorities and allocation of investigative resources, as well as variation in the Muslim population in the United States, I examine whether prioritization of counterterrorism investigations after 9/11 is associated with weaker enforcement of laws targeting white‐collar crime. I then use a difference‐in‐differences estimation to study the magnitude of any increase in white‐collar crime resulting from reduced oversight. I find a significantly greater reduction in white‐collar criminal cases referred by FBI field offices that shifted more of their investigative focus away from white‐collar crime to counterterrorism. Further, geographic areas in the jurisdictions of FBI field offices with greater shifts in attention from white‐collar crime to counterterrorism experienced greater increases in wire fraud, illegal insider‐trading activities, and fraud within financial institutions.     

The real effects of corporate fraud: evidence from class action lawsuits

Using a sample of lawsuit firms from 1996 to 2009, this study examines whether fraud revelation through shareholder class action affects corporate financing and investment policies. We predict that revelation of fraud damages defendant firms' reputation and undermines credibility of their financial disclosure. As a result, such firms experience difficulty in financing and reduce investment accordingly. Consistent with our prediction, we find that fraud‐committing firms experience a decline in total financing (total investment) by 1.5 per cent (0.8 per cent) of total assets after fraud revelation. Difference‐in‐differences analyses reinforce our main findings. The impact is more pronounced for firms with lower inherent fraud incidence.     

基于BP神经网络的保险欺诈识别研究——以中国机动车保险索赔为例

当前保险欺诈在国内外呈现蔓延态势,尤其体现在机动车保险领域,欺诈识别已成为保险欺诈研究的核心内容.目前保险欺诈识别有统计回归和神经网络两大类方法,这两种方法在指导思想和识别流程上各有优缺.本文基于我国财产保险公司车险索赔样本数据,检验BP神经网络在我国保险欺诈识别中的有效性;同时为了尝试统计回归和神经网络的有效融合,本...     

上市公司财务欺诈问题的研究

目前,对于财务欺诈的研究,集中在成因理论和制度防范上,大多采用规范分析的方法。本文从财务欺诈的成因分析入手,结合我国证券市场己披露案例的研究,我国证券市场的现状,深入分析了财务欺诈的成因。主要有外部环境制度上的缺失因素,也存在企业内部治理结构缺陷的影响。尤其在我国特殊的市场体制下,财务欺诈更是有它自身形成的诱因,阐述了从独立审计的角度,建立应对财务欺诈的防范体系的对策。     

上市公司财务报告舞弊的识别——基于三角形理论的实证研究

为构建财务报告舞弊识别模型,本文选取2000—2009年发生财务报告舞弊的A股上市公司及其配对非舞弊公司为研究对象,利用配对样本t检验、Wilcoxon符号秩检验、Logistic回归,对描述三角形理论的25个指标研究发现,两类公司之间营业利润—经营现金流量、外部董事比例等指标描述的压力和机会因素存在显著差异;各指标与舞弊可能性的相关关系表明,压力越大、机会越多,舞弊可能性越大。由此建立的识别模型正确识别率达到93.7%,有助于人们识别舞弊,帮助上市公司发现舞弊根源。     

Keeping Up with the Joneses: A Model and a Test of Collective Accounting Fraud

This paper explains the variations in incidence of accounting fraud across economic settings by putting the behaviour and motivation of managers under the microscope. To safeguard their reputation in the managerial labour market, managers of firms that perform poorly are prone to fraudulently inflate earnings if they expect the economy to be strong, since that raises the likelihood of peers reporting high performance. A realised level of economic activity, on the other hand, counteracts this tendency on the part of managers to overstate earnings, by reducing the number of firms that actually perform poorly. We term these two effects the incentive effect and the need effect, respectively. The two effects yield a distinctive relationship between the incidence of accounting fraud and macroeconomic conditions. Specifically, the fraction of firms fraudulently over-reporting earnings is positively related to expected economic performance and negatively related to realised economic performance.
The incentive and need effects on collective fraud are examined empirically by relating proxies of the aggregate incidence of accounting fraud to expected and realised GDP growth rates. The results unambiguously support the predicted influence of macroeconomic performance.     

金融诈骗罪刑法单独设节的理性思考

现行刑法将金融诈骗罪单独设节作为刑法分则第三章第五节从而与分则第三章第四节破坏金融管理秩序罪形成独立、并列的关系。这种被视为突破刑法立法体例传统的做法引起理论上的争议。肯定金融诈骗罪单独设节的观点从社会危害性、罪刑法定原则、金融诈骗罪罪群以及便利实务适用等四个方面论证了这种做法的合理性,否定说的学者认为金融诈骗罪单独设节具有与立法体例不合、立法思路不一、无单独设节之必要以及与境外刑法立法趋势相悖等缺陷从而不应单独设节。本文从金融诈骗罪主要客体、金融犯罪逻辑体系以及刑事立法传统等方面论证了金融诈骗罪单独设节不具有合理性且一一回应了肯定说所提出的观点。本文认为,金融诈骗罪的主要客体是金融交易秩序,其是金融管理秩序的下位概念,金融诈骗罪应当划入破坏金融管理秩序罪分节之下。     

An Analysis of Accounting Frauds and the Timing of Analyst Coverage Decisions and Recommendation Revisions: Evidence from the US

This paper provides a comprehensive exploration of the types of accounting fraud committed by firms over the period 1995–2009. Using detailed data from US SEC Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAER), we examine the likelihood and timing of analyst coverage decisions and recommendation revisions related to fraud firms versus firms without accounting fraud. We find that analysts have a higher probability of taking the more severe action of dropping coverage rather than only revising down recommendations for firms with any type of accounting fraud and also for specific egregious types of accounting fraud. Through the use of competing hazards models, we also find that accounting frauds and their egregiousness are positively (negatively) associated with the timeliness of the analysts’ action to drop coverage (revise only). Overall, we find that analysts’ actions may be useful in determining the occurrence of accounting fraud prior to the public announcement of the fraud.     

舞弊治理：基于上市公司财务舞弊特征的分析

选取2003～2007年度5645家沪深两地上市公司为样本,首先对其中209家舞弊公司财务舞弊的影响因素做统计分析,明晰上市公司财务舞弊的特征;然后,根据舞弊公司不同特征进一步实证检验,得出大规模事务所的选择、股权集中度、公司规模与财务舞弊负相关,独立董事比例与财务舞弊成"U"型关系,但没有发现代表财务状况指标净资产收益率的显著性影响,究其原因,发现舞弊公司存在虚增利润以外的其他更多隐性盈余操纵手段.     

BEYOND THE NUMBERS: MINING THE ANNUAL REPORTS FOR HIDDEN CUES INDICATIVE OF FINANCIAL STATEMENT FRAUD

Unlike previous fraud detection research, a vast majority of which has focused primarily on the use of quantitative financial information to predict fraud, in this study we examine qualitative textual content in annual reports to predict fraud and see whether there are discernible differences in the writing and presentation style between companies that committed fraud and those that did not. We believe that while numeric financial information in the annual reports can hide details of fraud, textual information relating to writing and presentation styles in such reports provides valuable clues pertaining to the existence of fraud. In this study we use the chi‐square test to analyse our data and test hypotheses about predictors of fraud that may explain linguistic feature variations in fraudulent and nonfraudulent annual reports. We provide new results on the usefulness of the qualitative content of annual reports in detecting fraud. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

论上市公司审计舞弊原因及治理

在证券市场中上市公司审计舞弊屡有发生,早期的“中天勤-银广夏”案件和近期刚被查处的“中磊-万福生科”案件都严重影响了审计公信力.也损害了投资者支资本市场的信心,导致近年来中国股市一直处于熊市状态.本文阐述了上市公司审计舞弊及其危害性,基于注册会计师法律道德及会计师事务所产权维度分析了法律风险偏低、职业道德失范、会计师事务所产权不合理是导上市审计舞弊的主要原因.并提出强化注册会计师的法律责任,加强注册会计师职业道德建设以及完善会计师事务所产权等治理审计舞弊的相关建议.     

Financial scandals: a historical overview

I examine the incidence of fraud from c.1720 to 2009 and relate it to the occurrence of significant financial scandals. Focusing on the UK, and US prior to Enron, and using a detailed dataset of significant events and news content, underpinned by examination of specific watershed scandals, the paper highlights the regulatory response to scandals and the implications for accounting and financial reporting. The evidence reveals the incidence of fraud and financial scandal to be historically contingent and skewed towards certain sectors, particularly banking and finance, facilitated by complex group structures and international capital mobility, and mediated by managerial incentives and ownership concentration. Financial reporting and auditing can mitigate fraud opportunities in all sectors and businesses without complex group structures, and the accounting profession achieved some success in this respect up to the mid-1970s. Since then, the profession has been increasingly challenged by, and to some degree implicated in, the development of interconnected and international business networks, which, combined with wider financial deregulation, has led to a resurgence of fraud and financial scandal not previously experienced since the mid-nineteenth century.     

Japanese stock market reaction to announcements of news affecting auditors’ reputation: The case of the Olympus fraud

The revelation of accounting fraud by the Olympus Corporation gave rise to shareholder allegations of audit failure against Olympus’ auditors—Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC and KPMG AZSA LLC—in 2011. In this study, we investigate whether the auditors’ affiliation with Olympus contributes to divergent perceptions of audit quality in the event of news announcements affecting the reputation of Olympus’ auditors. First, we use a nonparametric generalized rank event study methodology on 918 sample firms from the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) to observe Japanese investors’ perceptions of auditor reputation as proxied by abnormal returns. Second, we perform a multivariate linear regression on firms’ abnormal returns after controlling for firm-specific variables. We find that Japanese investors do not respond to negative or neutral reputational information arising from news announcements concerning Olympus’ auditors for firms affiliated and not affiliated with those auditors. In the absence of legal penalties imposed on Olympus’ auditors, we argue that Japanese investors consider the Olympus fraud case as an expected occurrence of audit failure due to a lack of evidence suggesting systematic audit failure on the part of Olympus’ auditors and an expectation of lower audit quality in the Japanese capital market. As a result, Japanese investors do not consider news announcements affecting the Olympus auditors’ reputation as sufficient evidence to change their prior expectation regarding the reputations of the audit firms affiliated with the Olympus fraud case.     

Whistleblower laws and corporate fraud: Evidence from the United States

We use data from the United States to assess whether whistleblower laws that protect private employees from retaliation have an impact on corporate fraud. Currently, eighteen states have whistleblower laws that offer such protection. Our analysis indicates that, in these states, a higher awareness of whistleblower laws is associated with a lower state-level conviction rate for corporate fraud. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that whistleblower laws that cover private employees have a deterrent effect on corporate fraud, and that awareness of the provisions of whistleblower laws plays a key role in determining their effectiveness as a policy tool.     

A rule-based fuzzy reasoning system for assessing the risk of management fraud

Detecting management fraud and assessing the risk of management fraud are significant issues confronting the auditing profession. Considerable theoretical and empirical research (Loebbecke, Eining, and Willingham, 1989; Bell, Szykowny, and Willingham, 1993; Fanning, Cogger, and Srivastava, 1995; and Hansen, McDonald, Messier, and Bell, 1996) has been accomplished investigating these issues. Building on this research, we demonstrate the construction of a rule-based fuzzy reasoning system to assess the risk of management fraud. The paper illustrates how fuzzy sets can be used intuitively to measure red flags on a categorical or interval scale, how different red flags can be combined using fuzzy rules, and how a single measure of the risk of management fraud can be derived. The knowledge base for this fuzzy reasoning system is developed by using the causal model of management fraud developed by Loebbecke, Eining and Willingham (1989), the empirical investigation of this model by Bell, Szykowny, and Willingham (1993), other researchers’ efforts and the authors’ judgments, using XpertRule software. The fuzzy reasoning system is tested using the fraud data provided by KPMG Peat Marwick. We discuss methods to magnify the knowledge base of this fuzzy reasoning system to make it a viable auditing tool, the costs and benefits of building a fuzzy reasoning system, and further extensions of this research. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

平台型媒体中的商业舞弊治理研究 ——基于生命周期视角

基于企业社会责任理论与企业生命周期理论,考量平台型媒体中的商业舞弊及其治理.结果发现:由于平台型媒体在各生命周期阶段的目标差异性,商业舞弊类型在平台型媒体中呈现周期性规律;随着平台发展,用户感知的平台合法性对商业舞弊有显著治理效果,即合法性为平台带来治理资源,从而提升其舞弊治理能力;不同维度合法性的治理作用与平台生命周期相关,即认知合法性的作用贯穿始终,规制合法性在引爆期的治理作用更大;平台用户的身份认知会调节平台合法性对舞弊的治理,即当用户在平台中的主导身份为供方时,合法性的治理效果会增强.