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Drawing on responses from over 2,000 professionals and 31 roundtable discussions around the world, this research provides lived experiences and perceptions of fraud to show how it has become industrialised, yet at the same time even more enabled by human actions, governance gaps and technological advancements that conventional controls fail to address.

In collaboration with ACFE, IIA, CISI, ISC2, Airmic and ACi, our coalition introduces a new Prevalence vs Materiality matrix lens to help our professions make better decisions about allocating resources and turning policy into practice.

We also provide new guidance on assessing what works and doesn’t – and crucially how to incorporate behavioural insights into effective risk governance. The aim is to show how stakeholders can work together to prevent fraud and its paths of destruction.

Key findings:

  • Cyberfraud ranks highest for both prevalence and materiality, acting as an amplifier for every other form of fraud, and ripping through value and supply chains.
  • Organised crime networks professionalise ‘fraud-as-a-service’: fast-moving, AI-powered deception and cross-border digital operations are outpacing traditional defences.
  • Procurement and third-party frauds, among the most prevalent schemes globally, are increasingly pervasive and rampant. They are a silent drain on value, often under-reported like many internal frauds and misclassified as ‘operational leakage’.
  • Cultural weakness and accountability vacuums allow fraud to persist – while 62% of respondents agree that fraud awareness training is important, only 57% believe their organisation proactively looks for fraud and that drops to 51% for accountancy professionals, who warn that fraud is eroding trust and organisational value.

Prevalence vs Materiality Matrix: What happens most vs what hurts most – so boards can prioritise the new controls that matter

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Internal fraud types hardest to report: Abuse of authority and third-party schemes sit in the shadows – culture, not just controls, unlocks detection

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Who thinks they own fraud – and who actually does? Misalignment fuels accountability vacuums

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What encourages reporting: Trust beats policy – retaliation monitoring and visible consequences drive speak-up confidence

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The following makes this research different:

  • Unprecedented coalition: ACCA convened various professional perspectives and leveraged its special interest group on fraud to shape survey design, analysis, and practical guidance.
  • Calls to Action and Thematic Typology: supplements aim to move fraud prevention from compliance theatre to operational reality.
  • Two new lenses introduced:
    Prevalence versus Materiality Matrix – prioritising what happens most versus what hurts most.
    Convergence Lens – mapping how fraud types interact across systems and supply chains.

Questions that lead to change

Organisations that survive and thrive will be the ones probing, challenging and connecting the dots – asking uncomfortable questions before fraudsters exploit the gaps.

Our report closes with role-specific prompts designed to turn awareness into action.

Further reading