In the dental managed-care sector, robust internal controls are crucial to safeguard the integrity of financial operations, particularly in processes involving service provider bank detail updates. This presentation will explore a comprehensive investigation conducted to evaluate the internal controls within an organisation's provider bank detail change process. The investigation's scope included a simulated insertion of fraudulent bank details into the system, an analysis of the frequency of bank detail changes, and a review of the responsible team's adherence to established procedures.

The presentation will also discuss data analytics used to review requests during a specific period, which revealed the need for enhanced controls to mitigate the risk of fraud. The session will conclude with recommendations to fortify procedures where sensitive information such as bank account details were processed, implementing independent verification systems, and enhancing employee training on fraud detection, and adopting advanced technological solutions to secure the integrity of provider details.

These improvements aim not only to reduce fraud risk but also to strengthen overall governance and safeguard an organisation's financial processes.

The South African Anti-Money Laundering Integrated Task Force (SAMLIT) is a financial information sharing partnership. SAMLIT has created enhanced collaboration between the banks, financial regulators, and law enforcement agencies. The partnership is helping to detect, prevent, and disrupt financial crime. Banks in SAMLIT are using their resources and analytical capacity to enhance co-operation, collaboration and timely exchange of quality and actionable financial information to support financial intelligence gathering and investigations.

The Tactical Operation Groups within SAMLIT allow for real time interface and collaboration between key role players, facilitating speedy transmission of financial information from banks via the Financial Intelligence Centre to law enforcement agencies, which can be easily assimilated and effectively used by law enforcement. The SAMLIT is thus contributing to the combined efforts of various sectors in the country to improve our anti-money laundering systems and to exit the gray listing status of the Financial Action Task Force.