Financial Crime: Prevention and Regulation in the Intangible Environment

Each decade, the global financial services industry spanning Western and Eastern economies, appears to enter another period of transformation, not only in terms of new financial products, but also mechanisms and methods of transaction. The technological issue that is currently sapping the energy of ministers throughout the developed and developing world, as well as computer experts, is the millennium bug syndrome. It is encouraging that policy makers and electronic experts are uniting in their efforts to avert an ‘electronic winter of discontent’ in the year 2000. The expediency of the spread of financial services throughout the global electronic arena, facilitated by the removal of real and visual borders, is set to reduce the current technological problems to miniscule proportions. Yet at present the response to the technological issue of even greater importance, Cybercrime, has resulted in discord, disagreement and apathy.