In public, banking executives in Kenya exhibit optimism that white-collar crime rates will soon come down, but in private, they are a worried lot. Latest statistics on banking fraud explain why:

Fraudsters have stolen at least Ksh1.5 billion ($17.64 million) from Kenyan banks in the past one year, in schemes hatched by technology-savvy bank employees.

According to data from the Banking Fraud Investigations Department (BFID), financial institutions reported Ksh1.49 billion ($17.52 million) stolen from customers’ accounts between April 2012 and April 2013. Investigators managed to recover only Ksh530 million ($6.2 million). Several cases are pending in court or are still under investigation.

Most of these crimes keep recurring, raising questions over the ability of financial institutions to seal loopholes in their systems.

Kenya’s top five banks by profitability — Equity, Co-operative, Standard Chartered, KCB and Barclays — were the worst hit by fraudsters.

Apple has been accused
of being "among America's largest tax
avoiders" by a Senate
committee.
The committee said Apple had used "a complex web of offshore entities" to avoid paying billions of dollars in US income taxes.
The committee said there
was no indication it had done anything illegal.
Apple has a cash stockpile of $145bn (£95bn), but the
committee said $102bn of this was held offshore.
Apple drew criticism three
weeks ago when it sold $
17bn in bonds to raise cash
to fund payouts to
shareholders, rather than
repatriating some of its cash
reserves, which would be
taxed in the US.
The move saved the company an estimated $9.2bn in taxes.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22600984

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