In business, numbers matter; likewise, numbers are of paramount importance when tackling the coronavirus pandemic. While financial numbers are easy to calculate, harm is far more difficult to quantify. The numbers arising out of COVID-19 are the tragic number of deaths and simultaneously the damage to our economies and costs to business which, while immense, are in this instance more difficult to quantify.
Harm occurs in many ways, and in the business of compliance, specifically financial crime, we often forget (or worse ignore) the emotional and physical harm caused to families and communities adversely impacted by financial crime. On Friday, Westpac, the oldest bank in Australia, made an announcement to the Australian stock exchange (ASIC) that the Australian money laundering regulator AUSTRAC is further investigating the bank and may expand the original statement of claim. The basis for the announcement and the actions of AUSTRAC are in part related to the discovery and disclosure by Westpac of 272 further accounts suspected to be connected to the exploitation of children.
