57% of all fraud incidents in India are ‘platform’ frauds: PwC India

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More than half of all fraud incidents in India were ‘platform’ fraud, a novel form of economic crime that involves fraudulent activities associated with social media, e-commerce, enterprise and finTech platforms, said a PricewaterhouseCoopers Private Limited (PwC) India report on May 11.

The onset of the pandemic has led to an increase in platform fraud, said the second edition of PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2022: India Insights, titled ‘Platforms: The new frontier of fraud in India’.

“The surge in remote work, e-commerce, delivery applications and contactless payments has further contributed to the rise of this type of fraud. 57 per cent of all fraud incidents in India were platform fraud,” it said.

It further said more than 26% of Indian organisations lost over $1 million due to platform fraud, and 44% of the perpetrators were found to commit fraud for financial gain.

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PwC said it surveyed 111 organisations across India from diverse industries such as technology, financial services, banking and capital markets, consumer products and retail, education, and healthcare.

Puneet Garkhel, partner and leader, Forensics Services, PwC India, said Indian consumers and organisations have been rapidly embracing new platforms over the past few years.

“On average, an Indian company operates with five different platforms as part of its regular business activities today. The emergence of and surge in e-commerce, contactless payments, home delivery models, remote working, etc., have not only led to various platform-based innovations but also opened avenues of entry for fraudsters,” he said.

“Organisations need to be cognizant of these evolving threats and adequately invest in fraud prevention and detection strategies to safeguard themselves,” Mr. Garkhel added.

The report said four out of every 10 platform frauds in India were conducted by internal perpetrators.

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Moreover, 26% of platform frauds involved collusion between internal actors and external perpetrators, it said, and added that this implies that if companies have stronger internal controls in place, over two-thirds of all platform frauds can be mitigated.

As per the report, financial frauds on transactions made to or from platforms accounted for 89% of all platform frauds. These frauds vary from basic unauthorised digital purchases to more complex identity theft and triangulation fraud.

Further, payment fraud, particularly through credit cards and digital wallets, accounted for 92% of all customer frauds in India.