Risk

Sometimes the pressures of life can turn an ordinary person into a criminal or to start thinking like a criminal. All they need is motive and opportunity. Motive can vary from one person to another. What that really means is that the person is faced with financial pressure. Financial pressure can be present in a person's life in a variety of ways. E.g.

• the person may have debts to pay that an ordinary salary will not cover, or
• their spouse or significant other may want things that the person cannot afford, or
• someone close to the person may be seriously ill and in need of money to cover medical bills.

The list is not exhaustive. But the idea here is to illustrate that the "financial pressure" is something that most of us feel from time to time. And in an organisation where the internal controls are poor, that is like an open invitation to commit fraud.

Some people take money or other assets with the intention of putting them back before anyone finds out. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

While some may empathize with the person, Crowe Barbados will work with you to remove the opportunity and the company's assets from the person's reach. We will work with you to develop anti-fraud programs and to strengthen internal controls and custody of company assets.

Stakeholders today demand internal audit to be more proactive in uncovering risks and to act strategically to help improve company operations.  Corporate greed and very poor internal controls have permitted the rape and pillage of many a company. Crowe Barbados can provide the support you need to reduce the risk of this scourge on your company. It all starts by having a risk mind-set and thereby allowing yourself to think of risk as an ubiquitous but manageable component within your corporate structure. Therefore, you must  be proactive in your approach to risk management in order to avoid being a victim.

History has shown that whenever there is a scandal involving missing money, management was aware that there were weaknesses in the internal control structure, but simply failed to act. Sometimes this failure borders on criminal negligence.

Moreover, with so many lay-offs and downsizing by companies, those who remain will have increased workloads, and increased responsibilities. Unless carefully managed, these new responsibilities could lead to poor segregation of duties. This, in turn, increases the risks of fraud, waste, abuse and other irregularities.

Crowe Barbados can help to test existing controls for effective design and operational efficiency. We can assist you in strengthening existing controls and also to design new internal controls to protect your company's assets, increase operational efficiency, and to provide transparent audit trails. We also provide assistance in monitoring these internal controls. 

Every organization needs a complete picture of the legal and regulatory landscape governing its business and industry. Full and accurate knowledge is critical to the success of every compliance team, and requires information well beyond the mere language of the statutes and regulations or simply obtaining the right licenses before the deadlines have passed. 

Our objective is to ensure that there is:

• understanding of the various pieces of legislation that impact your business
• understanding of the sanctions available to the relevant authorities and the impact on your business
• understanding of both regulators' expectations and business processes and challenges.

Our Assessment is tailored to your organizational needs and reduces by the possibility of hefty fines, and the reputational risk associated with non-compliance.

Compliance risk is exposure to legal penalties, financial forfeiture and material loss an organization faces when it fails to act in accordance with industry laws and regulations, internal policies, contractual obligations, prescribed best practices or sanctions imposed by government or some higher authority.

We work with you to develop a compliance universe. The compliance universe refers to the complete set of compliance risks applicable to your business. It outlines how compliance with legislation, regulations, internal policies and procedures is embedded in business processes and links ownership of compliance risks and risk mitigating actions to business or process owners. This will include but is not limited to FATCA, AMLA and other regulations that govern various industries such as banking, insurance and investments.