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Singaporean corporations are more naive in their approach to anti-fraud and corruption practices in comparison to the Asia-Pacific average, a survey from global accountancy firm Ernst & Young has found. According to the "Building a more ethical business environment survey," only 17 percent of Singaporean respondents acknowledged that planned investments in new markets will expose the company to new risks, compared to an average of around 35 percent for the Asia-Pacific region. "Companies in Singapore don't necessarily lag behind in terms of anti-fraud and corruption practices; what we found is a disconnect between policies that companies already have in place and the enforcement of those policies," said John Tudorovic, fraud investigation and dispute services partner at Ernst & Young. More Economic News: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1023271 https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=2de7c127-290e-44c8-b929-e5c04fc7f16e&ps=10

The slowdown in the economy after 2010-11 has had a ripple impact on the fortunes of India Inc. and lenders alike. With gross domestic product (GDP) growth decelerating from 8.4 per cent in 2010-11 to the sub-five per cent level in the first three quarters of the current financial year, the number of companies seeking succour from lenders under the aegis of the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) cell had almost doubled to 605 as of December 2013 against 305 as of March 2011. Further, there has been a 194 per cent jump, from []1,38,604 crore at the end of March 2011 to []4,07,656 crore as of December 2013, in the amount of loans that came up for recast. Therefore, it is not surprising that bank managements, in their internal meetings and conferences with the media and analysts, are devoting as much time fielding questions on the loans that had to be restructured in a quarter vis-à-vis loans that have gone sour. More related issue from Corliss: http://corlissonlinegroup.com/ http://corlissonlinegroup.com/blog/ http://corlissmag.livejournal.com/

McAfee report paints grim picture of lucrative industry, despite incomplete data. Cybercrime could be costing the global economy as much as $575 billion annually, according to a new report from McAfee. The Intel-owned security company based its estimate on a range of sources, from government agencies to NGOs and academic institutions, counting both direct and indirect costs. The report, Estimating the Global Cost of Cybercrime explained the methodology as follows: "This study assumes that the cost of cybercrime is a constant share of national income, adjusted for levels of development. We calculated the likely global cost by looking at publically available data from individual countries, buttressed by interviews with government officials and experts. We looked for confirming evidence for these numbers by looking at data on IP theft, fraud, or recovery costs. In addition to a mass of anecdotes, we ultimately found aggregate data for 51 countries in all regions of the world who account for 80% of global income. We used this data to estimate the global cost, adjusting for differences among regions." However, the vendor cautioned that "differences in the thoroughness of national accounting", as well as underreporting of incidents and the difficulty of valuing IP all make calculations an imprecise art. High income countries lost more as a percentage of GDP, which could be because they have better accounting systems in place and/or that their IP is more valuable and therefore a bigger target for criminals. The $575bn figure therefore comes from extrapolating a global total from high loss countries. It could be as low as $375bn if McAfee had extrapolated from "all countries where we could find open source data".

Large banks and trading firms are frantically trying to determine whether they have fallen victim to a suspected commodities fraud emanating from the giant Qingdao Port in northeast China. Citigroup and several other large Western banks are concerned that their loans may lack the appropriate collateral, big stockpiles of copper and aluminum at the port. The banks have inspectors on the ground who are trying to assess whether enough of the metals are there. The worry stems from suspicions that a Chinese companies pledged the same collateral for multiple loans. Chinese authorities are investigating the matter. The case could have broad repercussions for the commodities market and the Chinese economy. Banks have funneled billions of dollars into the Chinese economy through these murky transactions, and commodities prices have been falling over concerns that such lending will dry up. Western banks, including Citigroup, are bracing for any potential fallout. Just months ago, Citigroup fell victim to a multimillion-dollar fraud in Mexico. If the Qingdao developments harm the bank, regulators and shareholders are likely to press it to explain why its controls had failed again. Chinese companies are at risk, too.