Fraud awareness week has officially been launched and the SFA are calling on businesses to be extra vigilant.

Fraud smart is a fraud awareness initiative developed by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) in conjunction with Allied Irish Bank plc, Bank of Ireland, KBC Bank Ireland, Permanent TSB and Ulster Bank. The aim of this campaign is to raise consumer and business awareness of the latest financial fraud activities, the trends and to provide advice on how to best protect yourself and your business.

Below is an example of an invoice redirection fraud that occurred to an employee within their workplace. An invoice redirection fraud occurs when a business receives a fraudulent email claiming to be from an existing supplier advising of new bank details for payment. 

The SFA would like to direct your attention to this example and see how best to avoid it in your own working environment.

An employee received an email from one of their company creditors notifying them of new payment details. They updated the account information on their online banking. Afterwards, when the genuine invoice was submitted to them requesting payment the following month they thought that it wasn’t correct as to their knowledge they had paid. The email was found to be fraudulent after investigation. They informed the bank of the fraudulent incident to alert them. In this situation, the company lost money and still had an outstanding invoice to pay.

Follow the stages below to best protect yourself and your company in this situation:

• Make a phone call to a known contact within the company that is requesting the change of bank account details.
• Don’t contact the supplier of the invoice through any link or contact details.
• Ensure to check email addresses and make note of any request to or connection with transferring money.

If you would like more information on Fraud Smart, please visit their website.