Month: May 2021
How is RPA transforming the Healthcare Industry in the UAE?
Midhun Menon P
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 52 830 7998
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
By 2025, the healthcare sector is going to be one of the most technologically advanced industries in the UAE. At HLB HAMT, we help healthcare institutions digitally transform themselves by automating their patient handling and administrative processes. These days, a lot of emphasis must be given to customer satisfaction, and it is extremely important to provide the best quality service for your patients. We help you with solutions that will adhere to compliances and standards such as ADHICS/NABIDH in this sector. Healthcare firms cannot afford any errors or leakages happening with the patient data. Our developers can design the best possible BOTS to ensure that your focus will be solely on patient interaction.
We also provide RPA solutions in UAE for automating the hospital administration processes. Different daily repetitive manual tasks such as data entry, scheduling appointments, revenue cycle management, executing discharge summary, etc. can be automated in a streamlined manner. In this way, your patients can be treated with more value-based care and at the same time, your internal audits along with sharing of data with third parties can be managed effectively. Another is where BOTS can help is the automation generation of reports such as ROI, KPIs, etc. from various departments.
RPA in Healthcare: Benefits
RPA in Healthcare: Sample Use Cases
Here are a few of the sample use cases we have done in the healthcare sector.
Improving the Healthcare Cycle
The data handled by hospitals, be it their personal info or treatment details, are huge and with the help of RPA, the administrators can extract & optimize such data more efficiently. RPA can help convert these data to valuable management and medical insights to provide better treatment and diagnose diseases more accurately
Scheduling new patient Appointments
One of the bottlenecks of healthcare administration is scheduling new patient appointments. With the help of RPA Bots, the incoming patient data can be scanned, developed into a condensed report, and also queue the appointment request accordingly based on the parameters such as diagnosis, past history, and location. This can lead to quick processing and ultimately increase patient satisfaction.
Simplifying Claims Processing
Claims processing involves numerous time-consuming steps such as data input, scrutinization & evaluation, and approval. With the help of RPA bots, hospital management can streamline the entire claims process and get error-free output in ultra-quick time. The revenue recovery process can also be automated with the help of RPA.
Improved Financial Management
Financial operations require high human effort and time. Invoices, bills, paychecks, vouchers, etc. are essential documents that are important to be processed accurately. RPA can be helpful in generating automated bills for in-patient services by integrating data from various departments. Similarly, invoice data from purchase departments can be integrated to improve the cash flow and reduce the chance of any fraud.
Help Centers
Automating the patient contact touchpoints where the staff would not have to spend time interacting with the incoming help requests. Instead, RPA Bots can execute requests from the patients and do all necessary follow-ups. In this COVID scenario, this facility can be helpful to automatically book the PCR tests and to resolve any query related to your services and facilities. The BOTS can also be used for timely follow-ups with the enquirer.
Inventory & supply chain management
RPA can help update and communicate inventory levels, providing constant visibility, eliminating reporting errors, and ensuring optimal levels of critical medical supplies. RPA can help supply chain managers track the inventory required in a hospital, such as gloves, needles, syringes, medicines, or PPE kits by notifying them about changes in demand and supply patterns.
We’re merely at the tip of the iceberg in terms of how RPA can benefit healthcare institutions, be it small clinics or big hospitals. Things will change a lot once healthcare experts get to know its capabilities better and how the learnings can be used to improve for more refinement of their processes. Clearly, RPA is a perfect tool to help hospitals face fresh demands from the healthcare world. Times are certainly changing, identification and prioritization of various processes to automate are extremely important.
Why wait? Select the best RPA partner and automate your various workflows. Call our experts for more on how RPA can help the healthcare industry reduce operating costs and increase productivity.
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A Comparison of Social Contribution in GCC Countries
HLB UAE Payroll Team
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 50 205 9540
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
The Gulf Cooperation’s Council (GCC) is a political and economic union of Arab states bordering the Arabian Gulf. It was established in 1981 and its 6 members are the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain.
Local employees working in GCC either in the Government or private sector are eligible for pensions and other retirement benefits. These plans are for the benefit of employees and it gives them an opportunity to maintain their standard of living even after leaving their jobs. The social security contribution promises financial security during your retirement period.
Below is a comparison on Social security contributions in GCC. Employees working in GCC countries have different pension policies as per the Country Social Security Law.
There are two Authorities in UAE for handling social contribution. The rate provided above belongs to GPSSA (General Pensions and Social Security Authority).
- Maximum pensionable salary AED 50,000/-
- Employee Contribution – 5%
- Employer Contribution – 12.5%
- Government Contribution – 2.5%
- Calculation on – Gross Salary
Please see the below details for Abu Dhabi Retirement Pension and Benefits fund (ADRPBF)rates
- Minimum pensionable salary AED 6,000/-
- Maximum pensionable salary AED 200,000/-
- Employee Contribution – 5%
- Employer Contribution – 15%
- Calculation on – Gross Salary
Social Security acts as a foundation of income for employees which aids in the proper planning of retirement. More than that cases wherein workers become disabled or he/she dies, the social security system protects them and their families
For a comprehensive understanding of each country’s Payroll Process, please refer to our articles relating to each country.
- Payroll Process in UAE
- Payroll Process in KSA
- Payroll Process in Oman
- Payroll Process in Qatar
- Payroll Process in Bahrain
- Payroll Process in Kuwait
Payroll Process
The process of payroll is a little complicated and time-consuming; hence it is always recommended to outsource your company’s payroll function. Outsourcing payroll will ensure the assistance of a team of trained payroll professionals and it frees up the time of the organization, helping them focus on other projects that add value to their business.
One should be extra vigilant while selecting their payroll provider, as payroll data is highly sensitive, and one should opt for a provider that can ensure high levels of data security.
As a leading payroll outsourcing company, HLB HAMT can help solve your payroll complexities through customized strategies. We take care of our clients’ entire payroll cycle that includes preparation of payroll reports, processing salary payment with WPS compliance, accrual management including Gratuity, pension funds, an online portal for accessing payslips, and many more. Our leadership team spends the necessary hours in every project, ensuring our clients get refined consulting services to take your business forward. HLB HAMT provides payroll in UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman.
To know more about our payroll process, click here
Disclaimer:
Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this information, HLB HAMT will not accept any liability arising out of errors or omissions. Please note that this blog is not all-inclusive. Our guidance is designed only to give general information on the issues/topics covered. It is subjected to change and not intended to be a comprehensive summary of all laws which may be applicable to your situation, treat exhaustively the subjects covered, provide legal advice, or render a legal opinion.
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HLB HAMT Insight
HLB HAMT
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
Hisham Ali Mohamed Taher, founder member and Chairman of HLB HAMT, recently met His Excellency Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, UAE Minister of Economy and presented the honorable minister a copy of HLB HAMT’s magazine ‘Insight’.
Insight is a quarterly magazine published by HLB HAMT that voices the opinion of our employees on diverse subjects.
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Payroll Processing in UAE – Challenges faced by Payroll Accounting Team
HLB UAE Payroll Team
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 50 205 9540
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
Payroll processing can be a challenging process for every company, irrespective of its size. As the number of employees increases, the process becomes even more complicated and time-consuming. Gathering the information of each employee, calculating their gross and net pay, budgeting, calculating the accruals and taxes are part of payroll processing. Organizations are shifting to payroll outsourcing in UAE to ease their load. Outsourcing the payroll processes can be of help to the entities in numerous ways.
The challenges of payroll processing in UAE are many and it also affects the functioning of other departments within the organization. The repercussion of inaccurate data shared with the accounting department leads to numerous miscalculations that could hamper the business reporting requirement if the inaccuracy stays unnoticed. Some of the challenges faced are:
- Lack of accounting background and budgeting knowledge: In most organizations, payroll functions are generally managed by the HR department. HR professionals are excellent at their core function. However, they may not be able to facilitate the balance sheet requirements of the accounting team. The inaccurate figures passed on could take up a lot of time to rectify and lead to numerous misleading reports and budgeting mistakes. Lack of accounting background and budgeting knowledge can be the reason for these errors. In such cases, it is an added load of work for the accounting department.
- Inaccuracy in Accounting reports: Inaccuracy in accounting and finance reports can adversely affect the business. The cost allocation of the company to meet its requirements can be affected if the payroll details are not accurate in the accounting records and reports.
- Timely payment: Processing the payments of employees on time is the most challenging aspect in payroll processing. All the calculations must be accurate and should be processed on time. The organizations cannot afford to take risk on this as timely payment to the employees is a matter of existence.
- Confidentiality: Due to confidentiality issues, companies are hesitant to share the employee-wise salary information to its finance team. Payroll outsourcing is a solution for this issue as the finance team will get the report from a team of payroll professionals and they can completely rely on this report.
- Higher costs: The vast amount of time involved in payroll processing compels companies to maintain a well-experienced professional for the same. Employing a professional to undertake the payroll processes can be more expensive than outsourcing it. Apart from the salary, the maintenance of the employee, office space, stationery, furniture, IT equipment, etc. are additional costs that can be reduced by engaging an outsourced team of experts to manage this function.
Payroll processing is a complicated and challenging process. With the advancement of technology, new and improved methods are being used for payroll processing. Managing payroll in-house could bring in added expenditure; hence it is wise to choose the right payroll outsourcer who can handle your processes with ease.
HLB HAMT is one of the leading payroll administrators in the UAE. Our experienced team of professionals offers accurate and timely payroll processing to our clients. Through HLB Global’s network of member firms, HLB HAMT undertakes multi-country payroll management to serve clients in more than 155 countries in the best possible way.
Payroll Process
The process of payroll is a little complicated and time-consuming; hence it is always recommended to outsource your company’s payroll function. Outsourcing payroll will ensure the assistance of a team of trained payroll professionals and it frees up the time of the organization, helping them focus on other projects that add value to their business.
One should be extra vigilant while selecting their payroll provider, as payroll data is highly sensitive, and one should opt for a provider that can ensure high levels of data security.
As a leading payroll outsourcing company, HLB HAMT can help solve your payroll complexities through customized strategies. We take care of our clients’ entire payroll cycle that includes preparation of payroll reports, processing salary payment with WPS compliance, accrual management including Gratuity, pension funds, an online portal for accessing payslips, and many more. Our leadership team spends the necessary hours in every project, ensuring our clients get refined consulting services to take your business forward. HLB HAMT provides payroll in UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman.
To know more about our payroll process, click here
Disclaimer:
Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this information, HLB HAMT will not accept any liability arising out of errors or omissions. Please note that this blog is not all-inclusive. Our guidance is designed only to give general information on the issues/topics covered. It is subjected to change and not intended to be a comprehensive summary of all laws which may be applicable to your situation, treat exhaustively the subjects covered, provide legal advice, or render a legal opinion.
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RPA Implementation in UAE’s Banking Sector
Midhun Menon P
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 52 830 7998
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
We live in an age of digital interconnectivity, and it is no surprise that most banks in UAE are opting for or already undergone digital transformation. According to KPMG, top UAE banks have shown good performances in the past few years and have recorded a growth of nearly 14% in net profit. A good chunk of appreciation must be given to these banks who have used digital technology to expand their business to new horizons. Another major factor to this sudden change is the rising expectation level of customers, gone are the days where customers spend hours in a queue in front of a bank. Today’s customers want everything in 5G speed and more importantly, it is all about convenience and ambiance a bank provides. This trend is seen globally, from rising economies like India to developed economies like the U.K or the U.S. Here at HLB HAMT, we provide customized RPA solutions in UAE to automate numerous banking procedures that require human time and effort.
What are the current issues facing the Banking Industry?
Time, as they say waits for none. If you ask me what the most precious entity in the universe is, it is time! Most banks face the issue of spending too much time on processes with apparently less returns, and sometimes, I do agree that some processes are extremely crucial and thereby takes more time. For e.g., mortgage loan processing and all takes a lot of time to validate and execute. So time-consuming processes are one of the issues faced by the banks. Moreover, banking Is one sector which required highly experienced resources. A small error can have big repercussions in a bank’s reputation. The risk of data security and data leakage in the manual loan approval processes is also a challenge for many banks in UAE. With strict laws and compliances like NESA, data privacy and security should be given at most importance. Any man-made errors or non-compliant features can result in heavy fines and lawsuits against the bank.
What is RPA and why it is in trending among banks and other financial institutions in the UAE?
Robotic Process Automation or RPA is a proven technology, especially in finance and accounting verticals. Being a combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, RPA allows you to focus on important, higher-value work while automating high-level manual process flows. In a research conducted by Gartner, global spending on RPA across industries is expected to reach $2.4 billion in 2022! Another benefit of implementing RPA is it almost eliminates human errors in high-risk actions and thereby reducing operational risks by a great volume. Based on a PwC study, almost 80% of CEOs of leading banks are concerned about the rapid pace the technology is evolving per day in this sector and most of them feel RPA can be the tool that helps them keep up with the rising case of security risks associated with the same.
Many would-be having a doubt, how a programmed BOT can replace a human user, but RPA does just that, it can mimic human actions and can interact with a website, mobile app, or any software. The BOTS can be 100% customized according to each requirement and can automate a broad range of tasks to fit your needs. Besides AI-based BOTS never sleeps and can operate 24*7 leading to an increase in overall productivity.
Though we would be discussing later how RPA transform banking operations in detail, let me throw some light on its advantages for banking industry in a nutshell. Studies have suggested that banks that implemented RPA reduced up to 90% of their loan processing time and the approval process was faster by 50%. BOTS can extract the needed data easily and verify all required documents quickly. The KYC verification process also can be done easily and paperless. The labor costs can be reduced in the process. The turnaround time has reduced from days to hours and in some cases even seconds!!! The transformation of information from a legacy system to a modern cloud-based one can be done easily through RPA based solutions.
Banks in UAE, especially in Dubai are adopting RPA on a large scale for automating repetitive tasks such as customer support, loan processing, and account portability sections. On an average, these BOTS do close two 2 million transactions in a day. Another area which has seen drastic improvement is ATM cash disbursal, where earlier the time taken was close to 12 hours and now it is just under four hours!!! And it is not only middle east banks which are in the forefront, major banks such as Deutsche and HSBC have recently been in news of successfully implementing RPA in their business processes.
The concept of Digital Workers in the Banking Sector
As said earlier, the AI-powered BOTS can help banks be competitive and cut their operational expenditures to a large extent. The concept of Digital Worker has already been implemented successfully in other industries such as logistics and healthcare. To define, a digital worker is a virtual employee made up of AI, ML, RPA and analytics to carry out regular human tasks with 100% accuracy and in double-quick time. I believe this concept will catch up with other industries as well and in future, we will have more digital workers in every sector.
The digital worker in banking sector can automate lot of repetitive banking activities such as responding to customer queries, organize bank statements, handle incoming enquiries, process payroll slips, etc. The concept of a digital worker is such that it can integrate with any system or any platform and can be completely built to suit your process and business structure. The routine and mundane front and back-office tasks can be done by the digital worker, benefitting all stakeholders on one go.
Digital Worker for UAE banks: Use Cases
I am going to touch upon some time-consuming and repetitive procedures among the UAE banks that can be automated with the help of RPA. HLB HAMT is already providing most of these services to the leading banks in the region.
Inbound enquiry management
Credit Assistant
The credit related enquiries from customers through web-based medium such as chat, email and through website is interpreted accordingly by BOTS. The enquiries are categorized based on the eligibility and loan type. Pre-programmed BOTS will have rule engine defining each action course. The BOTS can verify a customer’s identity by scanning through the data bank and can even archive related documents required for sanctioning the loan. BOTS can also send request for additional info and send appropriate replies to the enquirer.
Accountant
BOTS here are programmed for enquires related to accounting functionalities, tax payments, VAT in case of UAE, etc. Again, the inbound enquires are categorized based on the type and action courses are defined. BOTS can retrieve financial data, updating accounting receivables etc. and check accuracy of the financial records. All the corresponding follow ups and proper reply to the enquirer will be done accordingly. Another BOTS activity is creation of analytical reports for management reference.
Customer Service
Thousands of enquiries come to a bank each day be it on chat, email, website, and even through CRM systems. As a human it is difficult to interpret the content and do the response accordingly. BOTS can help in the same by dividing the enquiries based on its type and following it up with relevant information. In a survey conducted by Accenture back in 2016, more than 70% respondents from the banking sector believes that RPA can be a big influential factor in enforcing compliance in the future.
Account Initiation & Closure Process
Usually there are number of documents to be processed during both account initiation and closure process. These documents can be both from the client-side or from the bank side. Sometimes, accounts will be forcefully closed due to a lot of reasons. Manually handling all this can be a tedious process. With RPA in place, banks can run a checklist of documents to be verified before an account initiation and closure. Notifications can be sent automatically via this process.
Risk and Compliance Management
Since it deals with lot of monetary transactions, there are extremely complex regulations and compliances to be met that deals with customer data privacy and security. Also, the risk associated with tighter deadlines, are bit too much headache for the banks. Reporting becomes a constant repetitive entity that is unavoidable. Moreover, these regulatory parameters change often making the manual work even more complex. RPA can help automate these manual reporting procedures and BOTS can be easily fed with regulatory requirement changes.
Tracking & Managing Accounts Payable
One of the most monotonous processes in banking sector, is accounts payable. It is a less complex procedure but has lot of data extraction and validation steps which is highly time-consuming and requires complete control and overseeing. Based on our experience, our clients across Dubai and other emirates have chosen accounts payable as a priority simple because it does not require a complex intelligence engine and can implement quickly.
We have designed this with the help of an OCR based solution where our document processing software can read information from the scanned copy of the file and RPA will do the rest of the process such as evaluating the information and send reminders if necessary. There is also manual intervention possible whenever necessary.
Processing Credit Card Applications
I still remember few years ago, it used to take more than 10-15 days, sometimes even a month for us to get the credit card approval from the bank. Obviously, this leads to a lot of frustration among the applicants, and some may even cancel the card altogether. What the normal manual process takes in weeks, RPA can do it within a matter of hours. All necessary validation checks or credit score checks can be conducted in the background and the system can arrive at a decision whether to go ahead with the card issue or not.
Processing Mortgage Loans
Loan processing is an extremely vital entity in a bank’s day to day functionality. Usually, this process, especially that of mortgage loans are extremely time-consuming. With a set rule engine, RPA can handle these processes hassle free. HLB HAMT has helped banks automate their loan initiation, KYC document processing, background checks like repayment history, employment verification etc. through RPA BOTS. Hence, the loans could be approved or disapproved swiftly. Another advantage of RPA in mortgage loan processing is that you can reallocate lot of your staffs to higher-value tasks.
Detecting Fraudulent Activities
HLB HAMT has its own forensic and fraud investigation wing where we help UAE-based banks track all dubious transactions and pinpoint on the fraudulent ones. We achieve this by using RPA by analyzing transaction patterns and having a quick responsive action against such grey accounts by either stopping the transaction or blocking that account altogether.
KYC Processing
These days, Know Your Customer, abbreviated as KYC is a norm for every financial institution. There are several mandatory checks regarding every customer. Validation of each parameter is a tedious manual job and something Banks usually spend a lot of money on. Accuracy is also an issue with these manual checks. With RPA, not only Banks can get the data validated in ultra-quick time, but they can also reduce the errors to almost nil.
Extracting Data from Legacy Systems
These data might be stored in multiple system across locations, the more the systems, the more there is a chance for errors to creep in manual systems. Our expertise team of RPA developers have developed systems to extract data from multiple systems including legacy ones. It is extremely important to process the data in any format and RPA does have that ability.
Generating Reports & Analytics Dashboard
All banks maintain a general ledger with all important data such as bank’s date-wise financial statements, assets, liabilities & revenue details, etc. Out of the reports created from such documents, some might be publicly accessible such as for company shareholders and media, and some might be of confidential nature. A small mistake in any of the report generation could spoil the bank’s reputation big time. RPA systems generally use report templates to create reports quicker and without any errors. Using the data, RPA systems can also create an analytics dashboard with all important information for top management people.
I have just discussed the most frequent Digital Worker use cases we implement for banks in the middle east region. There are many other use cases which can automated with the help of RPA BOTS. With the pandemic still hovering around us, it is wise as well to keep human contact to the minimum and reduce any bottlenecks in the bank’s daily processes. I believe as AI and ML algorithms evolve over time; we would be seeing more innovative RPA tools from the HLB HAMT team in the future. Its no wonder that Industry leaders have adopted RPA with open hands, and reports from renowned industry leaders say that by 2025, almost all banks will adopt RPA based Digital Workers in their day-to-day activities. RPA is here to stay, and probably stay for a long time.
If you are looking to implement any one of the above use cases or if you want to try out any innovative use cases, do write to us. Our experts will be in touch with you soon.
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The Impact of RPA in Insurance Industries in UAE
Vimal Ramachandran, Director
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 52 830 7998
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
Robotic Process Automation has been helpful in transforming many industries in the last few years. The automation of mundane and repetitive human tasks has helped companies to focus their employee’s energy on high-value tasks. Insurance firms, which handle a large amount of data, can be a perfect use case for the RPA implementation. The scope of AI-powered robotic bots and the concept of digital worker is gaining extreme significance among the leaders of Insurance firms. This is mainly due to the presence of monotonous & time-consuming manual jobs which inversely affect the delivery process and lead to customer dissatisfaction. In this article, I will be talking about our experience with implementing RPA at leading insurance firms in the UAE. Routine operation tasks are automated and has led companies to be more efficient and customer-centric.
What were the existing bottlenecks for RPA implementation in the Insurance industry?
RPA can streamline the data processing and make it much faster and error-free. The first question when an insurance firm decide to do RPA is where to start? What are the major time-consuming jobs? Where does company can save the operational costs the maximum and increase productivity? And most importantly which all processes are subjected to maximum human errors? At HLB HAMT, our experienced RPA consultants can help you in choosing the right service to automate. This involves many steps such as meeting all stakeholders, auditing your current processes, etc.
Another bottleneck is the overdependency on data from legacy systems. This data might be inside these systems for years, and sometimes decades. One of the biggest advantages of RPA systems is that it can interact with any data formats. This can help deal in cutting human expenditures caused due to system updates. Besides, if you decide to migrate from legacy systems, our cloud transformation service can be of help anytime.
Most companies will be lacking the skillset and training for handling RPA systems. This is one of the reasons why many companies refrain themselves from opting for new technologies. But RPA is one technology that does not require any special skillset or infrastructure. Yes, there are certain processes you should adopt but any layman can understand the same with ease.
The fourth bottleneck in my opinion, and this is the most crucial part of an RPA adoption in UAE is to overcome the reluctancy towards change management. Most people will be comfortable in a cocoon shell that they have been following for years. At each stage of the RPA implementation, proper training, documentation, and awareness programs will be conducted to all employees to make them comfortable with the new scenarios.
RPA in Insurance: Present & Future Use Cases
COVID-19 has changed a lot of scenarios for the insurance industry, especially now with lot of employees working from home, handling high volumes of transactions online has become a challenge. Although many insurance companies have opted for RPA and digital transformation even prior to the pandemic, the process got accelerated the adopted volume and particularly RPA being expanded to several use cases. Although it is a known fact that RPA can increase turnaround time, increase accuracy & efficiency, from our experience RPA can be perfect for risk predictions and connecting with the end customer. There is no doubt that RPA can revolutionize the insurance industry creating a lot of high-value jobs for the employees.
With HLB HAMT, you can automate lot of your lengthy and mundane daily chores through RPA. As you might know RPA uses a combination of Machine Language & Artificial Intelligence and can automate a large chunk of repetitive human tasks and that too in a very short time.
Let us look at few of the cases we have automated with RPA for our insurance industry clients in UAE.
Handling Claims Processing
One of the most frequent yet time-consuming tasks in the insurance field is the claim processing one. Employees usually must collect information about the client including their documents and this may involve getting data from multiple systems. Usually, this takes a lot of time and the delay can frustrate the end customer. Insurance is one are where no one like to wait as in most cases it will be an emergency request. Such collection of large quantities of data from various systems can be performed easily by the RPA. Moreover, it can handle many claims at once, something which is clearly not possible with manual procession. The evolution of AI is making these process more accurate and clients are enjoying quick responses to their claims. Not only data collection and extraction, but RPA can also be helpful in error tracking, verification of claims, integration with third-party data resources, etc.
Handling Policy Administration
All the existing policy administrative systems in the UAE are of legacy types and are costly to maintain. There are a lot of policy administrative functions, like quotation, rating, underwriting and customer care which can take lot of your operation time and manhours. The industry is ever so changing and the expectation of each customer varies. With RPA all administrative activities such as risk capture, credit controlling, settling accounts, taxations, etc. can be done quickly and more importantly in an error-free manner.
Managing Policy Cancellation
Personally, I have found this process to be extremely time-consuming and frustrating with insurance companies. If you look at the back end, there are hundreds of processes happening, from a host of emails, tallying cancellation & inception dates, checking policy terms, interactions with admin and CRM systems, etc. The time taken for the lookup is the sole reason of the delay, with RPA, Insurance companies can speed up this process as the checking happens in a swift second across systems and if everything is correct, can go ahead with the policy cancellation. From our experience, we can say that, our clients now handle a cancellation request with just one-third of the time comparing to the pre-RPA scenario.
Automating Underwriting
Evaluating the risks associated with insuring people and assets has always the issue of your client data getting exposed. Again, we are talking about a large substantial amount of data here. Usually from our interaction with our clients, this is a lengthy process and can take anywhere between two to three weeks on an average to complete this process. The process involves assessing the risk via information from multiple sources, scrambling & analyzing of data, etc. With the help of RPA, data collection process from all types of sources is quick and with the help of AI, all relevant information corresponding to a particular policy are put forward and a report can be generated. This report can contain all necessary info and recommendations.
Ensuring Compliance
Dubai and other Emirates are extremely vigilant and provides strict guidelines for the insurance sector in terms of data privacy and security. The laws get updated at a very quick pace and it is important for the insurance firms to stay par with all the updates. Any noncompliance with the privacy laws, can result in hefty fines and other legal consequences. Manual works can be error-prone, especially, in the case of work documentation, audit trail creations, the chances of error creeping are multifold. With RPA, the BOTS can be pre-programmed with all necessary compliances, therefore, saving a lot of manual time in due process. Regular jobs such as customer information validation, report generation, sending notification alerts, etc. can be automated via RPA.
Performance Measurement
The first thing that many decision-makers of leading insurance firms tell us is that they are not able to get accurate and centralized information from the ground level of operations. Lot of manual works might not be recordical and is difficult to keep a track on for a quantifiable measuring index of the overall efficiency. This is mainly due to the numerous paperwork one must scrutinize to have that measurement in place. With RPA, it is easy to track as all the tasks conducted by BOTS are logged properly. The overall areas which need improvement can be found out with the help of these audit trails. Moreover, the data collected from all the levels can be centralized and converted into a dashboard for better analyzing.
Miscellaneous Functions
Apart from the above functions, RPA can reduce around 40% of time in form registration process in insurance companies, can automate legal and credit checks along with creating sales scorecards and sending notification alerts to agents. With well-programmed BOTS, one can automate finance and accounts functionalities such as bank reconciliations and register transactional expenses.
As I had mentioned earlier, there will be a lot of companies relying heavily on legacy ERP or CRM apps. What RPA can do is easily integrate with these legacy systems and create a similar workflow as a manual one.
Future technologies trending in UAE
Our in-house RPA developers are adding more features everyday into the already impressive RPA solutions roster for Insurance industry. Recently, we did a solution based on image classification technology for settling claims and an OCR-based text extraction for handling customer policy extensions. The advent of blockchain-based technologies will increase data security by many folds along with RPA.
We at HLB HAMT believe RPA is “the” most perfectly fit technology for the insurance industry as we can automate end-to-end processes easily. Moreover, BOTS can never be tired, and be able to work 24*7 without a drop in accuracy is also a welcome thought. The daily chores and processes can be standardized which can lead to an increase in operational efficiency. The whole RPA installation processes hardly take any time and can work in sync with your existing IT infrastructure. Our expert consultants can train your team regarding how RPA application works in a matter of a couple of hours.
Again, as I mentioned in the beginning, change management is something that must be seriously looked at. I agree it will be difficult for the employees to embrace a new technology initially, but guess, once they start using RPA, they would realize that they can use their skill for higher-value jobs in the company. Moreover, all this process automation can reduce the wait times and keep the end customer happy, and keeping your customer happy means, good times for your company!!!
For any information related to installing RPA in Insurance industry, get in touch with our experts!!!
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100% foreign ownership on UAE mainland effective from June 1st
Lavin Nalinababu, Business Consultancy
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 55 160 1291
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
News regarding complete ownership to foreign nationals on UAE mainland has been circulating for a while now. Even though investors and entrepreneurs had embraced the amendment wholeheartedly, there wasn’t much clarity on the sectors that will be included and the date of commencement. Now, the UAE government has released the full list of 122 categories for 100 percent ownership in the mainland under the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Law and this will come into effect from June 1st, 2021.
The positive list of categories for which complete ownership will be allowed include key sectors such as agriculture; manufacturing; transport and storage; hospitality and food services; information and communications; science and technology; healthcare; education; art and entertainment; and construction. For some categories, complete ownership will be permitted on fulfilling certain criteria.
Until now, a foreign investor was permitted to own maximum of 49% shares and at least 51 percent of the shares should be owned by the local sponsor.
“Complete ownership of business to foreign nationals on UAE mainland is undoubtedly a landmark decision by the government. Foreign investors had to restrict their business operations within the free zones if they wanted 100% ownership and this has pulled back many from investing in the country. With the latest amendment, more foreign nationals will start establishing their business in UAE, which will enhance the country’s position as a leading business destination. Investors are also spared from the task of looking for a local sponsor. Also, the new rule will attract more exhibitors to the country during Expo 2020”, says Jay Krishan, Partner, Business Consultancy at HLB HAMT.
Please find below the list of activities for which the new rule will be applicable;
Agriculture sector
| ISIC4 | Business activity | Minimum Capital | Conditions and controls for foreign direct investment | |
| 1 | 01111 | Grain cultivation (wheat, corn, barley, etc.) | – use of modern technology – achievement of high added value – contribution in the research and development field – satisfaction of the requirements of the licensing entities in the state | |
| 2 | 01112 | Cultivation of bean crops | ||
| 3 | 0113 | Cultivation of vegetables, melons, roots, and tubers | ||
| 4 | 0114 | Cultivation of sugar cane | ||
| 5 | 0116 | Cultivation of fiber crops | ||
| 6 | 0119001 | Flowers and Flower Buds Cultivation | ||
| 7 | 0121 | Growing of grapes | ||
| 8 | 0123001 | Fruits and Citrus Cultivation | ||
| 9 | 0124 | Growing of pome fruits and stone fruits | ||
| 10 | 0125 | Growing of other tree and bush fruits and nuts | ||
| 11 | 0126 | Growing of oleaginous fruits | ||
| 12 | 0127 | Growing of beverage crops | ||
| 13 | 01289 | Growing of aromatic, drug and pharmaceutical crops | ||
| 14 | 0161 | Support activities for crop production | 10 | |
| 15 | 0162 | Support activities for animal production | ||
| 16 | 0163 | Post-harvest crop activities | ||
| 17 | 0164 | Seed processing for propagation | ||
| 18 | 0210 | Silviculture and other forestry activities | ||
| 19 | 0240 | Support services to forestry |
Manufacturing sector
| ISIC4 | Business activity | Minimum Capital | Conditions and controls for foreign direct investment | |
| 20 | 10 | Manufacture of food products (except): 1071- Manufacture of bakery products 105 – Manufacture of dairy products Cultivation of fiber crops108 – Manufacture of prepared animal feeds | 15 | – use of modern technology – achievement of high added value – contribution in the research and development field – satisfaction of the requirements of the licensing entities in the state |
| 21 | 10 | Manufacture of beverages (except): 1101 -Distilling, rectifying, and blending of spirits 1102 -Manufacture of wines 1103- Manufacture of malt liquors and malt | 15 | |
| 22 | 14 | Manufacture of wearing apparel (except): 14109 – Tailoring and Sewing of Wearing Apparel 1410122 – Military Garments Manufacturing | 15 | |
| 23 | 15 | Manufacture of leather and related products | 15 | |
| 24 | 16 | Manufacture of wood and of products of wood and cork, except furniture; manufacture of articles of straw and plaiting materials | 15 | |
| 25 | 2012002 | Straight or Complex Fertilizers Manufacturing | 15 | |
| 26 | 2013 | Manufacture of plastics and synthetic rubber in primary forms | 15 | |
| 27 | 2021 | Manufacture of pesticides and other agrochemical products | 15 | |
| 28 | 2022 | Manufacture of paints, varnishes, and similar coatings, printing ink and mastics | 15 | |
| 29 | 2023 | Manufacture of soap and detergents, cleaning and polishing preparations, perfumes, and toilet preparations | 15 | |
| 30 | 2029006 | Glues and Prepared Adhesives Manufacturing | 15 | |
| 31 | 2029008 | Manufacture of dyestuffs and pigments | 15 | |
| 32 | 2029009 | Textiles and Leather Finishing Used Chemical Materials Manufacturing | 15 | |
| 33 | 2029013 | Manufacture of photographic plates, films | 15 | |
| 34 | 2029019 | Gelatine and Its Derivatives Manufacturing | 15 | – use of modern technology – achievement of high added value – contribution in the research and development field – satisfaction of the requirements of the licensing entities in the state |
| 35 | 2029021 | Essential Oils Manufacturing (Essence) | 15 | |
| 36 | 2029022 | Extracted Natural Aromatic Products Manufacturing | 15 | |
| 37 | 2029023 | Aromatic Distilled Waters Manufacturing | 15 | |
| 38 | 2029024 | Matches Manufacturing | 15 | |
| 39 | 2029025 | Welding Powders and Pastes Manufacturing | 15 | |
| 40 | 2030 | Manufacture of man-made fibres | 15 | |
| 41 | 2100 | Manufacture of pharmaceuticals, medicinal chemical and botanical products | 15 | |
| 42 | 22 | Manufacture of rubber and plastics products | 15 | |
| 43 | 23 | Manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products | 15 | |
| 44 | 24 | Manufacture of basic metals (except): 242 Manufacture of basic precious and other non-ferrous metals 2432 Casting of non-ferrous metals | 20 | |
| 45 | 25 | Manufacture of fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment (except) 2529 Manufacture of weapons and ammunition | 15 | |
| 46 | 26 | Manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products | 15 | |
| 47 | 27 | Manufacture of electrical equipment | 20 | |
| 48 | 28 | Manufacture of machinery and equipment n.e.c. (except) 28259 Tobacco Processing Machinery Manufacturing | 100 | |
| 49 | 29 | Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers | 100 | |
| 50 | 3011101 | Building of Commercial Vessels | 100 | |
| 51 | 3011103 | Ships and Floating Structures Sections Manufacturing | 100 | |
| 52 | 3011905 | Construction of Drilling Platforms, Floating or Submersible | 100 | |
| 53 | 3011906 | Construction of Floating Structures | 100 | |
| 54 | 3011907 | Building of Hovercraft | 100 | |
| 55 | 3012 | Building of pleasure and sporting boats | 15 | |
| 56 | 3020 | Manufacture of railway locomotives and rolling stock | 20 | |
| 57 | 3030 | Manufacture of air and spacecraft and related machinery (except): 3030006 Military Ballistic and Guided Missiles Manufacturing | 100 | |
| 58 | 3090 | Manufacture of transport equipment n.e.c. | 20 | |
| 59 | 31 | Manufacture of furniture | 15 | |
| 60 | 3220 | Manufacture of musical instruments | 2 | |
| 61 | 3230 | Manufacture of sports goods | 3 | |
| 62 | 3240 | Manufacture of games and toys | 3 | |
| 63 | 3250 | Manufacture of medical and dental instruments and supplies | 20 | |
| 64 | 3290 | Other manufacturing n.e.c. | 3 | |
| 65 | 3312001 | Repair and maintenance of train engines | 15 | |
| 66 | 3312002 | Repair and maintenance of engines ship | 15 | |
| 67 | 3315001 | Repair and maintenance of ships | 15 | |
| 68 | 3315004 | Repair and maintenance of trains and railway equipment | 15 | |
| 69 | 3315005 | Maintenance and Repair of Aircrafts Engines | 15 | |
| 70 | 3315006 | Repair and maintenance of aircraft | 15 |
Service sector
| ISIC4 | Business activity | Minimum Capital | Conditions and controls for foreign direct investment | |
| 71 | 6910002 | Legal Consultancy Offices | As per the applicable regulations | – Not to advocate before the UAE courts. – Not to carry out any judicial procedure before courts, arbitral tribunals, and judicial and administrative committees. – Not to carry out attestation activities – To obtain the approval of the relevant entities in charge of licensing such activities in the State – To be a natural or legal person known for its excellence in this field |
| 72 | 692 | Accounting, bookkeeping, and auditing activities; tax consultancy | As per the applicable regulations | Only permissible for tax planning for businesses and consultancies, preparing and reviewing taxes on businesses |
| 73 | 711 | Architectural and engineering activities and related technical consultancy | As per the applicable regulations | To be a natural or legal person known for its excellence in this field |
| 74 | 862 | Medical and dental practice activities | ||
| 75 | 75 | Veterinary activities | ||
| 76 | 620 | Computer programming, consultancy, and related activities | As per the applicable regulations | To provide a technical team of no less than 5 specialized programmers by the end of the first year of the company |
| 77 | 72 | Scientific research and development | As per the applicable regulations | As per the applicable regulations |
| 78 | 7730-77300 | Renting and leasing of other machinery, equipment, and tangible goods | ||
| 79 | 471 | Retail l sale in non-specialized stores (except Cooperative Societies 4711001) | ||
| 80 | 731 | Advertising | ||
| 81 | 732 | Market research and public opinion polling | ||
| 82 | 702 | Management consultancy activities | ||
| 83 | 712 | Technical testing and analysis | ||
| 84 | 331 | Repair of fabricated metal products, machinery, and equipment (except ships or aircraft and other transport equipment) | ||
| 85 | 8121-81210 | General cleaning of buildings | ||
| 86 | 742 | Photographic activities | ||
| 87 | 8292-82920 | Packaging activities | ||
| 88 | 823 | Organization of conventions and trade shows | ||
| 89 | 741 | Specialized design activities | ||
| 90 | 7490005 | Legal Translation Services | ||
| 91 | 7490006 | Translation services, movies, and television programs | ||
| 92 | 7490012 | Translation Publications Services | ||
| 93 | 8299002 | Translation Services | ||
| 94 | 41 | Construction of buildings | As per the applicable regulations | Only permissible for large-scale infrastructure projects such as airports, highway roads, sports facilities and projects whose value exceed AED 450,000,000 |
| 95 | 42 | Civil engineering | ||
| 96 | 432 | Electrical, plumbing, and other construction installation activities | ||
| 97 | 433 | Building completion and finishing | ||
| 98 | 431 | Demolition and site preparation | ||
| 99 | 439 | Other specialized construction activities | ||
| 100 | 7730009 | Construction and Building or Demolition Machines and Equipment Renting | ||
| 101 | 851 | Pre-primary and primary education | As per the applicable regulations |
|
| 102 | 852 | Secondary education | ||
| 103 | 853 | Higher education | ||
| 104 | 854 | Other education | ||
| 105 | 370 | Sewerage | As per the applicable regulations | As per the applicable regulations in this regard |
| 106 | 382 | Waste treatment and disposal | ||
| 107 | 3900001 | Pollution Consequences Treatment and Environment Protection | ||
| 108 | 861 | Hospital activities | 100 |
|
| 109 | 869 | Other human health activities | 70 | As per the applicable regulations |
| 110 | 8211001 | Hotel Management | As per the applicable regulations | |
| 111 | 8211004 | Restaurants Management | ||
| 112 | 90009 | Creative activities and presentation of art drama (theater) | Permissible only for theater activities and live bands As per the applicable regulations | |
| 113 | 9000104 | Music Band | ||
| 114 | 9000110 | Circus | ||
| 115 | 8130002 | landscape and gardening services | ||
| 116 | 9103-91030 | Botanical and zoological gardens and nature reserves activities | Permissible only for public garden services and specialized garden services. | |
| 117 | 5012-50120 | Sea and coastal freight water transport | As per the applicable regulations | |
| 118 | 5022001 | Internal Water Transportation of Goods | ||
| 119 | 7730016 | Commercial Ships Rental | ||
| 120 | 5222002 | Ship Piloting and Towing | ||
| 121 | 5222007 | Marine towing of boats and jet sk | ||
| 122 | New | Activities of holding companies in intellectual property |
HLB HAMT has been helping diverse businesses setup their companies in UAE, irrespective of the jurisdiction. We will take care of the entire incorporation process; right from assisting you choose the best location to starting the operations of the firm.
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Why SME’s in UAE need to opt for RPA?
Midhun Menon P
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 52 830 7998
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
Technology is evolving ever so constantly, even as we speak. In today’s world, more and more innovations are coming through, enabling businesses to stay on top of their competition. These technologies are now more of a necessity for many industries rather than just a fancy add-on.
Among the technology aids, we feel Robotic Process Automation (RPA) should be on top of every company’s implementation priority list. RPA allows organizations to automate regular and repetitive human tasks, enabling an improvement in their operational workflow as well. RPA can be extremely valuable for industries wanting to cut down labor and reduce their processing times. In this blog, we will try to highlight on the importance and why RPA should be opted by small and medium business enterprises in UAE.
Small and Medium Businesses can use RPA for several tasks, starting from automating document processing to generating bulk e-mails to payroll creations. Errors are minimized or eliminated, and a hassle-free sales-oriented operational process means achieving higher customer satisfaction.
Let us now take a detailed look at why businesses need to opt for RPA software in UAE.
Managing Time-Consuming Tasks
If you ask any SME’s where they face their greatest challenge and lose most of their precious time is while doing data-related tasks. Most of your employees feel tasks such as entry, analysis, storage and transferring of data become a bit mundane and boring to do. Sometimes, careless handling of data can lead to errors creeping in. With RPA, companies can automate all such tasks with the help of programmed BOTS.
Streamlines Business Processes
Sometimes, your business processes will feel too cluttered and distorted. What RPA can do is bring in a structure to your business processes. Also, BOTS can do a seamless communication between two of your systems, for e.g. if you have to connect your incoming mails in Outlook to your ERP systems, you can assign BOTS to perform the same.
Low Investment, Better Results
Often, we have seen SME companies spending large on technologies to lessen the burden on their employees. Most of the time, they leave disappointed as they feel no immediate change in their process times despite the high investment, they had put in.
Simplifying Business Insights
For modern day SME’s it is extremely complex to run multiple operations and processes at the same time. The data from all departments must be collected, analyzed, and interpreted to gain business insights. With the helps of RPA bots, data from various departments can be collected and interpreted easily and thereby provide solid business insights for the company management.
According to studies, RPA can increase a company’s productivity by 20% to 80% depending on the industry and company size. For SME’s specifically, it can benefit them in automating their repetitive tasks, improve their overall operational workflow and save their valuable employee time.
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Preventing Financial Fraud UAE – Ensure your organisation is protected
Raghunath. T, Director
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 55 807 4568
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in 2019 a reported $1.9 billion was lost to financial fraud, and that represented an increase of over 15% from the previous year. However, not all financial fraud involves companies losing money in an immediately quantifiable manner. Often, the fraud centers around deception that results in a slow drain of funds or drop in profitability that can span several years. Regardless of the immediate or long-term effect, it’s important to know how to pinpoint—and stop—financial fraud before it affects your bottom line.
Evolution and Types of Financial Fraud
The most common types of financial fraud involve inflating earnings through various means. The objective is to keep specific groups of stakeholders happy. This often includes private investors, the stock market, or people or organisations holding the company’s debt. There are several ways this kind of fraud is levied, but some of the most common include:
- Extending the period of depreciation to delay when the depreciation gets factored into the company’s accounts. Many assets depreciate, steadily, year-to-year. If a valuable asset’s depreciation is left off the books for an extra year or so, stakeholders can be fooled into thinking the company’s financial performance is more valuable than it actually is.
- Hiding liabilities by shifting debt from the main company to a special purpose entity. This kind of fraud involves creating or maintaining a separate company that the main company can shovel off its debt to. The entity’s balance sheet reflects the debt that used to be on the main company’s records.
- Recognising revenue early while delaying the recognition of expenses Some companies will enter their revenue but leave out the funds they spent to make that money until a later date. When both are, eventually, included, the books balance true. But before then, it looks like the company’s revenue to expense ratio is a lot higher than it actually is.
- Incorrect capitalisation of expenses When a company capitalises something, they categorise it as an asset instead of an expense. As a result, it shows up on the balance sheet instead of the income statement, which accounts for expenses. If an investor or other stakeholder were to ask to see the income statement, this potentially sizeable expense wouldn’t be factored in, artificially inflating the company’s performance.
- Factoring in non-existent inventory to fraudulently reduce the cost of goods sold (COGS). The lower your cost of goods sold, the more efficient your company’s production system looks. To calculate COGS, the Initial inventory is added to Purchases made during the period and the period ending inventory is deducted. So, if a company pretends that they have more inventory at the end of the period, their COGS is lower, making them look better to investors.
Cases of Financial Fraud
The history of financial fraud is long and complex, but here are some of the more notable examples.
One of the largest and the most high profile frauds was that of Enron.
Enron, which was once a poster boy of Wall Street, was found to have engaged in serious fraudulent activity which involved keeping large debts off the balance sheets. While the high stock prices did arouse suspicions, it was eventually an internal whistleblower’s revelations that led to the downfall of the organization. The scandal ended up costing shareholders around $74 billion and resulted in the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
In 2016, the car manufacturer Volkswagen was embroiled in a scandal that ended in a settlement estimated to be in excess of $25 billion. This was not a direct financial fraud, but nevertheless, one that had serious financial consequences . In order to avoid failing to meet emission standards set by authorities in the US and other markets, Volkswagen installed software in their vehicles that enabled them to fool emissions testers. Thus, vehicles tended to show far lesser emission levels than actual and were considered roadworthy. Once the cover-up was unearthed, it led to a recall of almost 500,000 vehicles and led to serious financial and reputational losses for the company.
Other cases like the Lehmann Brothers scandal that triggered the economic recession in 2008, the Wells Fargo scandal and Bernie Madoff’s outrageous Ponzi scheme were also noteworthy, but the unfortunate situation is that despite all efforts from authorities across the world, there are still several cases which continue until this day.
The most high profile case in recent times was that of the German financial services company Wirecard.
The Wirecard scandal has been dubbed the “Enron of Germany.” The payment provider falsified their books by reporting money that simply did not exist, executing a fraud that spanned the globe. They owed creditors nearly $4 billion. While the CEO was arrested, their COO, who was considered to be a key figure in this scandal, is still missing at the time of writing this article.
The Next Big Bubble—Cryptocurrency Fraud
Cryptocurrencies have reached a total market capitalisation of $600 billion. This is only a small fraction of fiat currencies worldwide, which are valued at around $36.8 trillion, but this doesn’t minimize the potential for cryptos to be exploited by fraudulent actors. There are several reasons why fraudsters may soon target cryptocurrencies.
No Sovereign Backing
The value of a currency is driven by the financial health of the body that issues it. For example, the US dollar has more value than the Jamaican dollar, primarily because the US economy is more stable and powerful. The value of each currency is relative, and a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), exports, imports, and other factors all affect how much their money is worth in comparison to those of other nations.
While Bitcoin does have the likes of Elon Musk endorsing it, there is no sovereign backing for the currency. Therefore, the only thing anchoring their value is the speculation of investors. Without verifiable financial fundamentals, fraudulent actors could swing the value of cryptos without being checked by a regulatory body.
Volatility
Bitcoin, which comprises 66% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, went from being valued at $1 to $32 per coin in just three months. Fast-forward to the time of writing, and a single bitcoin is worth over $40,000. However, this is more than 10 times what it was in December 2018 when it dropped to around $3,400.
The meteoric rise and falls experienced by cryptocurrencies have created an atmosphere where large fluctuations are the norm rather than the exception. Sudden dips or drops in value hardly raise an eyebrow, leaving open the possibility for widespread valuation fraud.
Lack of Clarity
There’s a cloud of confusion around how cryptocurrencies work, as well as their vulnerabilities. As a result, many seasoned finance professionals and institutions have warned investors to steer clear of cryptos.
Cryptocurrency infrastructure depends on people using computers to solve mathematical problems, called hashes, on a register called the blockchain. While blockchain infrastructure itself does a good job of rebuffing hackers, the anonymity cryptos provide, as well as the lack of financial oversight, provides fertile ground for fraud.
How Can Organisations Ensure That Financial Frauds Are Better Prevented?
The good news is that financial fraud can be prevented. There are several steps companies can take to prevent fraud from impacting their organisation, its partners, and customers.
Study the Governance Mechanisms
The governance infrastructure of a company can form the foundation of a fraud-prevention strategy. This would necessitate strong governance mechanisms at the board level, including the board’s constitution. A thorough examination and evaluation of the constitution is best performed by external experts with the various tasks involved given to separate committees.
It’s also important to delegate authorities effectively, making sure the right people are in charge of examining the most fraud-sensitive areas of the organisation. One way to make these authorities’ jobs easier is to implement whistle-blower policies that provide protection for those that speak up when they see something wrong.
To prevent fraud before it takes root, it’s important to perform due diligence on customers and suppliers. In addition, at times, employees also have to be investigated to mitigate the risks posed by internal vulnerabilities. This can be done by limiting the tenure of people in key positions, as well as re-examining the rights of people who have access to sensitive systems.
Audit Environment
A healthy audit environment sets the stage for a more thorough and transparent audit procedure. This requires clear and independent external and internal audit charters. In addition, there needs to be open communication between external and internal auditors, including those on audit committees. At times, the roles of audit committee members should be re-evaluated to ensure the integrity of the process.
Stakeholder Relationships
Certain stakeholders are naturally more compelled to attempt fraud than others. Here are some questions to ask to make sure your company is remaining vigilant:
- Are there instances of exceptionally favourable or unfavourable financial terms with banks?
- Are there suppliers who appear to be getting exceptionally large shares of the business or are paid far higher than market rates?
- Are there customers who appear to be getting significantly more favourable prices and terms than others?
These kinds of questions can help identify those who may be more likely to levy fraud against your company. Digging into the answers can help you stay a step ahead.
Business Model and Sector Performance
While there are always outliers, in most cases, a company’s performance should be similar to others within its sector. This is typically true because they often have similar target customers and deal with the same, or parallel, micro- and macro-economic factors. Therefore, it’s prudent to raise questions such as:
- Is the business model clear and sustainable?
- Is the auditor able to visualise what this company would look like financially in the next 5 or 10 years?
- Is the company reporting earnings significantly more than its peers? If so, is there a clear competitive advantage that it has that justifies this earning?
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Cybersecurity in Pandemic time
Sumesh Krishna, Partner
Phone:- +971 4 327 7775
Mobile:- +971 50 749 0576
WhatsApp:- +971 56 219 1607
Email:- dubai@hlbhamt.com
Our business is in the most disruptive times now, and the cybercrimes are also at their peak, giving nightmares to the business owners. Now cybersecurity is one of the priority agenda among all the C-suite members of a business.
Cybercrimes are emerging to second place, with 33% per cent of all types of business-related fraud. Cybercrimes are accelerated during the pandemic mainly because of remote work scenarios.
Data breaches, ransomware attacks, BEC and phishing attempts have increased during remote work; according to the sources, over 60000 emails per day include COVID related attachments or malicious websites.
The following are some examples of socially engineered scams happening in this pandemic time.
- Mails camouflaged as government announcements: Various mails are focusing on phishing, carrying government institutions logo and unnatural links related to COVID-19.
- Fake medical advice: – Mails are sent as attachments my mentioning secure cures related to COVID-19 in the name of known medical providers.
- Charity: Mails in a phishing nature is sent in the name of pandemic to solicit donation
- BEC Campaigns:- Campaigns are initiated to target the operationally affected industries.
- Unverified websites and mobile apps: During the pandemic most of the companies are forced to adopt remote working and for this they need to use various IT tools and platforms. Many companies have not checked the reliability of the platforms they are using, which exposes their company to cyberattacks and related frauds.
As cyberattacks and frauds proliferate during the crisis, companies need to assess their cyber risks and prepare for potential threats regularly.
Cyber risks are unique to each company based on the activities and the data they are handling; like financial institutions and healthcare companies that handle a large amount of critical personal data. So, the company needs to explore the cyberattacks considering the following points;
- Technical and operational activity and data attacks
- Business and financial activity and data attacks
- Regulatory and compliance-related attacks
The risk of cyberattacks is high, which results in increased costs to the companies to safeguard them. But investment in resources and related tools for assessing and mitigating cyber risks might be less than the legal and financial consequences caused due to a cyber-attack.
HLB HAMT has a perfect team and having the right expertise, we helps many organizations in/ by;
- Developing a risk-based security strategy to strengthen the basic security coverage.
- Implementing and scaling out security controls.
- Provide training to the workforce.
- Choosing the right tools.
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