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The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) has initiated a joint partnership with the City of London Police which will allow its UK based members to support the national policing lead on fraud in the fight against economic and financial crime in the UK.
The new programme is encouraging CISI members based in London and surrounding regions, who are newly retired or about to retire, to volunteer their time and skills with the City of London Police, to support their efforts in tackling the fraud and cybercrimes which UK Finance estimates is costing the UK nearly £7 billion a year and affecting all aspects of society, from individuals to businesses and consumers. The programme has started with a pilot in London and the surrounding region with the goal of working with police forces across the UK once the initial programme is underway.
Criminals are increasingly using complex, corporate structures to commit fraud, much of which is beyond the day to day routine knowledge and experience of the police.
Ian Dyson, City of London Police Commissioner says: “The challenge in the modern world is the volume of data we are dealing with. We have limited capacity in policing at the moment to manage this. People who are operating in a profession can bring to me those specialist skills that help me and my officers understand how the criminal is committing their fraud. CISI members all have skills that we need. You may think that you have nothing to give the police but the structures that you manage on a day to day basis are exactly the structures the fraudsters use and that we need to understand.”
The CISI, with its origins in the London Stock Exchange in 1992, is the global, not-for-profit, 44,000 strong professional body for those working in the financial planning, wealth management and capital markets sectors. Its members working within these sectors are qualified in specialist areas such as compliance, risk, operations and fintech.
“The City of London Police are committed to tackling fraud so the opportunity to work with volunteers is invaluable to me. If CISI members wanted to do something away from their day job on a voluntary basis to help us in our efforts, I would welcome the opportunity to work with them”, said Mr Dyson.
James Phipson, Special Commander, City of London Police oversees all volunteering in the City of London and is spearheading a drive to bring more professionals into policing, with a specific focus on fraud. James is himself a volunteer police officer (Special Constable) and in his day job owns and manages his own professional services firm near the City. He said: “CISI members encompass exactly the professional pool that we want to reach out to. Every one of its members has skills that we are desperate to use. If CISI members want to get involved, we would be delighted to consider them. There is no minimum hours requirement at all. Some of our volunteers are retired and work for us full time. Others help us on specific investigations or in specific functions.”
Simon Culhane, Chartered FCSI, CISI CEO said: “As a professional body we work with over 1,000 volunteers, without which we couldn’t function. It occurred to us, that here was another opportunity for our senior members, all of whom have long backgrounds and expertise in the financial sector. Some of these senior members might be thinking of moving away from full time paid work, to use their minds and time to help the public, by volunteering with the Police to combat the fraudsters.”