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This paper aims to measure the extent of effects of insurance fraud on the financial performance of insurance companies in Ghana. It also examines the causes and stringent measures that can be used to fight against insurance fraud.

Primary and secondary data obtained from 39 insurers in Ghana are used in this paper. A multiple regression model is used to determine the relationship between financial performance and insurance fraud variables.

The results from the model indicate that statistically insurance fraud has a significant negative effect on the annual return on assets (financial performance) of insurers in Ghana. Also, weak internal controls, poor remuneration of employees, falsified documents, deliberate acts of policyholders to profit from the insurance contract and inadequate training for independent brokers are found to be the major causes of insurance fraud in Ghana. To deter insurance fraud, effective internal fraud policy, rigorous assessment of insurance policies and claims, adequate training for independent brokers on insurance fraud and modern information technology tools are paramount in fighting this menace in Ghana.

These findings are to have substantial impact on the techniques insurance companies will develop to fight insurance fraud and the policies that will be developed by governments and national insurance regulatory bodies to fight this menace.

The main value of this paper is the determination of the key variables that constitute insurance fraud and their impacts on the annual financial performance of insurance companies in Ghana.

Insurance frauds deeply affect insurance companies, policyholders, and the insurance industry as a whole. The cost of fraudulent damage affects the profitability of companies, and has negative effects on the society in terms of moral values. Increases in insurance costs can lead to increases in the premiums paid by policyholders, each family, and, ultimately, all of the insured. Recently, new legal regulations related to this issue have been performed in Turkey and higher institutions have been created. A regulation issued by the Under-secretariat of the Treasury, on June 1, 2011, defines insurance fraud as aggravated fraud. Insurance fraud in Turkey usually takes the form of intentional misrepresentations of facts to the insurance company to get the company to pay for something not actually covered by the policy. Studies examined the insurance industry in terms of the concept of financial crime, and inclusion of the concept of financial crime in insurance regulations was proposed since financial crimes have an important place in the current problems of the industry. In addition, it is seen that insurance frauds have changed over time as a result of studies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how insurance brokers control opportunism at the postcontractual stage of insurance contract in the Nigerian insurance market. Such opportunism, widely reported of insurance commercial customers, threatens the survival of the entire insurance institution while brokers' role is grossly ignored.

The paper involved the use of semi‐structured interviews of insurance broking executives and documentary analyses of how insurance brokers gather and pass on information between clients and insurers to control opportunism in the insurance market.

Findings suggest that the involvement of the insurance brokers from the claim notification stage, claim auditing to actual settlement and dispute mediation are instances of control over customers' opportunistic tendencies. Also, it is found that fear of reputation damage and brokers' professional way of handling clients' over‐exaggeration and suspicious claiming might considerably control insurance opportunism.

Involving insurance brokers in the claim settlement stage is capable of reducing insurers' claim auditing costs while guaranteeing hassle‐free claiming experience for customers and boosting the image of the insurance industry. Hence, findings are relevant for insurance companies and regulators desirous of controlling opportunism in the insurance market.

The paper extends the marketing role of brokers to the claim settlement stage by highlighting their potentials to control clients' opportunistic behaviours which threaten the insurance market.

Insurance fraud as a global economic problem threatens the financial strength of insurers and threatens the survival of the insurance institution. The purpose of this paper is to explore the magnitude of the problem including the industry's and regulatory authority's responses in tackling the menace in Nigeria. The paper is motivated by the recent effort on the part of the Nigerian regulatory authority to strengthen the sector through consolidation. Such renewed vigour on part of Nigeria is geared towards fighting all forms of economic crimes in both public and private sectors in post‐military years.

The paper reviews the literature on the existing fraud control mechanisms, i.e. insurance contract design and auditing and the perception of fraud by customers in the insurance market. A survey is conducted by interview method to explore the size of the problem and the effectiveness of the approach the industry and its regulator are adopting to control it.

The paper's findings suggest a lukewarm or no serious attitude on the part of the regulatory authority and the insurance companies in appreciating the enormity of the problem now and in the future. This stems from lack of clear‐cut sanctions for offenders and mechanism for enforcement.

The paper reveals the paucity of research of such a topical issue in developing economies and suggests the need for urgent stakeholders' summit that will discuss effects of insurance fraud on the industry with a view to identifying specific roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder group in tackling the problem. This should also be complimented with the establishment of insurance fraud bureau that would promote public awareness campaign on the evil effect of fraud on the economy.

The purpose of this chapter is to expose the limitations of the equity-based crowdfunding provisions of the 2012 JOBS Act. These provisions have received much attention because they have the potential to open funding opportunities to countless underfunded entrepreneurs and small businesses. In addition, they can provide everyday investors with new ways to diversify their portfolios. However, the author asserts that the JOBS Act is unlikely to be successful in its current incarnation, because it overly burdens the entrepreneur with reporting and accountability requirements, among other things. The author resolves these issues by articulating a regulatory alternative to the JOBS Act.

This chapter reviews the general requirements for equity-based crowdfunding under the 2012 JOBS Act. It also reviews the various approaches individual states and other countries have taken to promote equity-based crowdfunding.

The existing law and proposed regulations for equity-based crowdfunding under the JOBS Act are overly burdensome and will impair the ability of entrepreneurs and small-businesses to successfully use equity-based crowdfunding throughout the United States. Regulators and other lawmakers need to adopt new rules focused on protecting consumers via spending limits.

Most of the research is based on theory, because the equity-based regulations have not been finalized or implemented at the federal level. However, the United States can learn much from the equity-based crowdfunding efforts of individual states and other countries.

This chapter’s critique is designed to engage lawmakers, regulators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses in a new discussion about equity-based crowdfunding regulations.

Sections 29–33, 35 and 77 of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) 1993 amended CJA 1988 and came into force 1st April, 1994. The Money Laundering Regulations (SI 1993/1933) likewise came into effect 1st April, 1994. During the debate on the 1993 legislation, which extended money‐laundering offences to all crimes and thereby tax crimes, views were expressed that while tax crimes were technically within the scope of the legislation, disclosures of tax crimes were not likely to occur, due to the difficulty of identification.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on managing the risk of fraud in commercial letters of credit (LC) in Bangladesh involving three parties: the seller, the buyer and the bank. It addresses the severity of LC fraud, the banks’ actions when detected and the preventive measures the relevant parties can adopt.

This research uses doctrinal and qualitative methods to propose strategic actions that benefit buyers, sellers, banks, legal professionals and judges. The study aims to explore the modus operandi used by fraudsters through thematic analysis.

The study’s findings reveal that LC fraud has escalated to a concerning level, posing a significant threat to the economic stability of Bangladesh. Measures must be taken to mitigate this risk and safeguard the country’s financial integrity. To effectively combat the risk of LC fraud, the updated version of UCP must include specific and detailed guidelines on LC fraud. This study recommends preventative measures that all parties involved must take to reduce the likelihood of fraud significantly.

Due to a lack of LC experts, the participant sample for the study in Bangladesh was limited. Nevertheless, most banking participants were highly distinguished and held the Head of Trade Finance Department position in commercial banks. A few academics and legal practitioners with LC expertise also participated in the study.

It provides cutting-edge solutions to effectively handle LC fraud risk and provides proactive measures to prevent it.

The purpose of this paper is to set a framework for strategic management of credit card fraud, by mapping its stakeholders within a card issuer and outlining its ideal strategies.

The objectives are attained via case study. Primary data was collected by interviewing two fraud risk managers at the card issuer, while secondary data was collected by gathering all investor reports released from 2015 to 2019 by the financial institution. All data were submitted to content analysis and further analyzed using Mendelow’s power/interest matrix.

Seven groups of stakeholders were identified, the expectations of each group uncovered and KPIs proposed to measure how well the financial institution meets those expectations. Strategies to deal with and prioritize groups were outlined, while highlighting the need for repositioning stakeholders identified as potential blockers or facilitators of strategic initiatives and pressure factors in times of low performance.

Strategic management of stakeholders is essential for fraud risk managers and researchers to understand what is relevant and what is not. This paper creates a framework for addressing managerial and academic efforts based on stakeholders mapping. Further initiatives in research and practice should consider the following question: “Which stakeholder expectation will be better satisfied?” In case the answer is “none”, it is advised that the initiative be reconsidered.

Previous literature focusses mostly on the technical challenges, leaving a gap in both literature and practice for using Strategic Management. For the first time in literature, this research combines theories and terminologies from fraud risk management and strategic management.

The food supply chain has faced many challenges due to its complex and complicated nature. Blockchain technology is one of the mechanisms used to improve agri-food supply chain processes by evolving organization capabilities. A study is being conducted to scrutinize the adoption of blockchain technology in the agri-food supply chain through the lens of the operational capability approach. It further makes an attempt to identify the capabilities of blockchain to improve supply chain processes.

The qualitative research method with semi-structured interviews was used to gather information from experts and professionals in the food supply chain and blockchain technology. The authors have adopted a systematic approach of coding using open, axial and selective methods to depict and identify the themes that represent the blockchain-enabled agri-food supply chain. The data were collected from 32 interviews of selected participants.

The result shows five critical areas where blockchain can come up to enhance the agri-food supply chain performance by providing traceability, transparency, information security, transactions, and trust and quality. Further, the study reveals that blockchain will provide safety, lower the cost of transactions and can create trust among users to communicate within the whole supply chain without the intervention of a third party. This study demonstrated that the capabilities need to be considered when introducing technology into the practice.

The study implies thought-provoking implications for bridging the theory-practice gap by examining the empirical data to demonstrate how the operational capabilities of blockchain technology further strengthen the agri-food supply chain. Additionally, this study provides some suggestions for utilizing the results and proposes a framework to understand more about blockchain use cases in the agri-food supply chain as well as extend the application of blockchain using an operational capability approach for future academic researchers in this area.

This study presented some more important managerial implications which reveal that the majority of organisations were in the initial stages of adoption process of blockchain technology. Further, the positive influence of managers and IT experts can help the information technology companies (IT) and stakeholders for developing and promoting blockchain solutions in the agri-food supply chain. The important implication of blockchain enabled agri-food supply chain is to maintain information security and incresae supply chain performance.

The study shows the operational capabilities of agri-food supply chain using blockchain technology. Blockchain can contribute in enhancing the agri-food supply chain to increase traceability and transparency and helps to reduce the risk of disruptions.

This paper aims to assess 12 audit procedures that deemed challenging to insurance audits.

This paper uses grounded theory as a framework for conducting series of semi-structured interviews with six technical audit partners, two from Big Four and four from non-Big Four. The interview agendas are drawn from the 12 audit approaches suggested by Practice Notes 20 (The Audit of Insurance in the United Kingdom) issued by the Auditing Practices Board (UK).

Without an audit standard, practitioners will exercise excessive professional judgments and deviate from audit approaches.

Though the findings are solely drawn from the insurance sector rather than a wide spectrum of sectors, they have huge ramifications to accounting and audit professions, stakeholders and regulators.

This paper reveals differences in audit approaches between the theoretical context and practical perspective.

The paper showed that impact of audit failure leads to litigation, financial losses and loss of faith in audit quality and approaches.

This paper suggests a hybrid approach on the grounded theory, provides an extensive overview of the sector’s audit approaches and issues and unravels an urgent need for a concerted international auditing standard.