La gestión del riesgo de fraude en entidades de los sectores financiero y solidario de la ciudad de Medellín

Abstract

The main purpose of this work is to identify the internal and external factors that lead to the materialization of the risk of fraud in companies in the financial and solidarity sectors. Four semi-structured open interviews were conducted with two organizations supervised by the Superintendencia de la Economía Solidaria de Colombia: Cooperativa Belén Ahorro y Crédito (Cobelén) and the Common Benefit Fund of SENA Employees, and two entities supervised by the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia: Bancolombia SA and Coofinep Cooperativa Financiera. Likewise, 40 surveys were carried out for employees of these companies so that, according to their criteria, they could order some concepts related to the risk of fraud from less to greater importance. In order to analyze the causes and factors that generate risks of fraud in the companies and identify the main controls for their prevention and detection, the Donald Cressey fraud model (1961) was used. This study presents the contrast between the similarities and differences existing in the entities supervised by the Superintendencia de la Economía Solidaria de Colombia and the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia, identifying the management of the risks of fraud, the misappropriation of assets and fraud in the financial statements, and the consequences of their materialization. The companies under study were selected taking into account their representativeness in the sectors to which they belong; additionally, the closeness of the authors with the administration of such companies allowed the development of the objectives of the investigation. One of the main limitations identified in the research process was the access to information related to risk matrices and fraud risk management programs in the companies under study, due to their confidentiality policies. In any case, notwithstanding its more theoretical than real nature, this exercise does not cease to be profitable.