Tarisa Watanagase: Mitigating fraud risk in financial institutions Keynote address by Dr Tarisa Watanagase, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the seminar on “Mitigating Fraud Risk in Financial Institutions”, Bangkok, 29 April 2008. *  *  *  Khun Kaisri, Distinguished Guests, It is my great pleasure to join you at this seminar on “Mitigating Fraud Risk in Financial Institutions”, hosted by KPMG Thailand. I would also like to thank the host for giving me this important opportunity to share the views of the Bank of Thailand on this topic. The globalization of the financial services industry, the increased sophistication and complexity of financial institutions and their services, and the ongoing advancement of technology continue to introduce new risks and opportunities for fraud. The pace and complexity of these advances have vastly accelerated beyond the risk associated with traditional credit and market risk activities. One of those emerging risks in financial institutions is fraud risk, which needs to be effectively controlled through effective governance and sound operational risk management processes. Fraud risk in financial institutions has increased as perpetrators use advanced innovation and technology to identify and exploit weaknesses in banks’ IT systems, databases, and delivery channels, including ATMs and the Internet. Financial institutions must take care to ensure that system security measures are effective as a means to combat fraud.
To conclude, I would like to reiterate the importance of preventive measures to combat fraud, and I applaud your efforts in holding a conference on this topic as it shows that you place a high degree of importance in this area. While no institution can ever be expected to be completely fraud proof, institutions maintaining key elements I discussed will have taken a big step towards fraud mitigation and avoidance. I wish you great success for this seminar. I hope you accomplish your objectives and I know you will all take a lot of valuable information from this timely and meaningful event. Thank you again for inviting me to join you today and thank you very much for your attention. BIS Review 52/2008  3