This would immediately flag the loans going outside their own bank and also provide greater insights into how customers were using funds over time. Another approach is to incent auditors to find fraud and embezzlement and make it widely known in the bank that anyone finding illegal practices would receive a reward up to 20% of the error found. Auditors, who are traditionally not paid that much, would work overtime looking for fraud, hoping to earn 20% of the fraud found, thereby drastically reducing the threat. While this may appear expensive, without this strategy a bank could go for years, losing millions of dollars, if no action was taken. In the case study, it is apparent that Greater Providence Deposit and Trust auditors were not organized or incented in their job design and rewards to actively seek out embezzlement and fraud. This is a major limitation in the design and operation of many auditing departments in financial services (Van Wijk, Holmes, 2007). A large part of why the auditors would not...

Unfortunately for many financial institutions, this is commonplace, with the disconnects between SOX reporting requirements and actual operations being completely different (Holtfreter, Beaver, Reisig, Pratt, 2010). For the Greater Providence Deposit and Trust, the only alternative was to delist themselves, go private, get their auditing and reporting processes and procedures more robust, and then attempt to stay in business by re-earning trust.
References

Kristy Holtfreter, Kevin M. Beaver, Michael D. Reisig, & Travis C. Pratt. (2010). Low self-control and fraud offending. Journal of Financial Crime, 17(3), 295-307.

Eelco R. Van Wijk, & Timothy R. Holmes. (2007). Fraud in the Audit Department. The Internal Auditor, 64(2), 83-85,8.

Joseph T.…