Fighting financial crime 'should be priority'

Wed 28 Nov 2007 3pm

The authorities have been urged to step up the battle against data fraud and other forms of financial crime in the UK.

In a speech given at the fifth annual conference on financial crime of the British Bankers' Association (BBA), chief executive Angela Knight said that illegal practices such as identity theft are used to fund other types of criminal activity, including drug trafficking and terrorism.

Commenting on the recent high-profile incident of data loss from HM Revenue and Customs, Ms Knight claimed that the UK government is still not doing enough to prevent financial crime.

"It is clear that the government has not yet accepted properly the case for making fraud and financial crime a priority for law enforcement in its own right," she stated.

Ms Knight added that "the police's performance framework has to have financial crime as a high agenda item".

Last week, a spokesperson for Equifax stated that the key to defeating identity fraud is "all about prevention rather than cure".

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