Managing Fraud Risk: A Practical Guide for Directors and Managers

The RICE Model

It is May 2006. I am standing in front of a flipchart in a room in the training centre of one of the fastest growing banks in the Caribbean region. The training centre is located in the town of Chaguanas in central Trinidad and Tobago, about 15 miles in-land from the island's capital, Port of Spain, a short distance in miles although the journey has taken me almost an hour to complete from the hotel this morning. This is the first of a series of talks and training sessions that I am due to give to the executives and managers of the bank over the course of the next two weeks. There are 20 managers in the room for this session. By way of introduction, I say how delighted I am to be back again in beautiful Trinidad and Tobago and I thank everyone at the bank for making me feel so at home. I refer in passing to the weather (it happens to be raining!) and to the heavy traffic (coming from London, I know all about traffic problems too!), people laugh and this helps to break the ice. I then come to the subject matter of the course – “Business Ethics”.

I am aware that the delegates might be sceptical about the value of this training. Before leaving the UK, I had mentioned this project to a number of my business colleagues and associates. It had certainly attracted a lot of interest. Of course, the location of the training gave rise to a good deal of comment and many rather envious contrasts were made between the beautiful Caribbean islands and the dull and wet United Kingdom. ...