Kelly Richmond Pope in ’A forensic-accounting expert on how to treat the fraud epidemic’ published in The Economist on 19 May 2023 said that the way to treat the $5 trillion fraud epidemic was to encourage more insiders to spill the beans.
The problem is indeed huge as Pope’s article makes clear: “Research by Crowe, a financial-advisory firm, and the University of Portsmouth, in England, suggests that fraud costs businesses and individuals across the world more than $5trn each year. That is nearly 60% of what the world spends annually on health care.”
Whilst whistleblowers undoubtedly have a part to play in the fight, the fact that the problem is so large indicates that they and others such as auditors and interested stakeholders need better tools.
Triple Entry Accounting (TEA) by Pacio is the answer. TEA replacing the 500 year old double entry accounting system makes it harder to commit fraud in the first place, then easier to detect if still perpetuated by inter party collusion, and finally makes it impossible for the criminals to hide the evidence, as TEA keeps an immutable third record of inter entity transactions on a scalable distributed ledger.
TEA can help to greatly (90%+) reduce the scourge of fraud, and we propose, in so doing will become the killer use case for DLT (distributed ledger technology) or blockchain technology.
Pacio sees introducing TEA as a better means of fighting fraud than encouraging more whistleblowers. With TEA, fewer whistleblowers would be needed, and where fraud does still happen and a whistleblower reveals it, the whistleblower would be able to provide clear cut, incontestable evidence in support of their exposure.
TEA is a central part of the Pacio Vision. The Pacio White Paper describes what TEA is, how it will be implemented, and how it will be scaled to become the new world standard for accounting and business management, hugely reducing fraud in the process, contributing towards $5 trillion in economic good for the world.