World
Financial fraud happens every 15 seconds
Jamie Dimon: Brexit could be reversed
The chief executive of JPMorgan( JPM) said before the June 23 referendum he thought Brexit would be a " terrible deal for the British economy." Asked by an Italian newspaper how the European Union should now respond to the vote, Dimon said it must work together to address its weaknesses.
" Europeans should say: look, there are rational complaints, we are going to fix them for all of Europeans, not for Britain alone, but for everyone else. Maybe you can even reverse Brexit," he told Il Sole 24 Ore. " If you buy a house but you never had a chance to look at it, and then you see it and you do not like it... this can happen," he said. " There is nothing wrong to change one ' s mind but this is not my decision to make." Some voters have already said they regret their decision, especially after leading Brexit campaigners back-pedalled on a number of pledges they made. Dimon was one of many Wall Street executives who supported Britain staying in the EU. JP Morgan has 16,000 staff in Britain, but may have to move some employees out of the country because of Brexit. No big bank has announced any job moves yet. And on Thursday, Goldman Sachs( GS), JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley( MS) and Bank of America( BAC) issued a joint statement, promising to work with the U. K. to help London " retain its position as the leading international financial centre." Dimon is not the only one suggesting Britain could still reverse course. A top London law firm is preparing legal action to ensure U. K. lawmakers debate Brexit. It argues that parliament must give its consent before the government triggers Article 50 of the EU treaty, beginning the formal exit talks. – CNN
Financial criminals will commit a fraud somewhere in the United Kingdom by the time you finish reading this sentence. More than one million incidents of card scams, online and telephone banking and check frauds occurred in the U. K. in the first six months of the year, according to Financial Fraud Action U. K., an industry body funded by banks. That ' s an increase of 53 % over the same period of last year, meaning one such crime is now committed every 15 seconds, the FFA said.
Banks are getting more sophisticated in their fight against criminals-- last year, they managed to stop $ 7 in $ 10 of the attempted fraud transactions from happening, the body said. But there is a flip side to their success. " As the banks ' systems get more advanced, fraudsters turn their attention elsewhere and sadly this often means tricking people out of their personal details and money," said Katy Worobec, the director of the group. The group said 26 % of people admitted providing personal details to people claiming to be from their bank, even though they knew they shouldn ' t.
Why? According to a survey by the FFA, 43 % of people simply felt the person asking for their details seemed genuine, while 38 % said they provided the details because they were busy and wanted to get off the phone quickly. The group is launching a new initiative to educate people about financial fraud such as email and phone scams and phishing attempts.
Last year, losses from this kind of fraud in the U. K. totalled 755 million pounds($ 980 million). – CNN
2016 Business Times Africa 9