In 2013, incidents of fraud involving intermediaries rose significantly as improvements to internal controls led to higher rates of detection. Incidents involving third parties, meanwhile, fell sharply. This was due mainly to measures introduced to tackle fraud at our operations in India. Since then, our efforts to tackle misconduct, fraud and mis-selling paid off, with significant reductions across the board.
Aegon's Code of Conduct, available in 13 languages, contains rules, regulations and guidelines relating to among other things, discrimination; free and open competition; confidentiality; bribery; money laundering; environmental responsibility; responsible investing; disclosure of financial information; and our customer-centric approach.
Mandatory Training
It is mandatory for employees to take part in training on our Code of Conduct and on issues such as insider dealing and money laundering. In 2015, 89% of all employees globally had completed the training.
We also include provisions on tackling financial crime in our company policies and business principles – and have a separate global Financial Crime Notification and Reporting Procedure. We record all incidents of fraud and, where appropriate, we'll take steps to prosecute culprits.
Internally, we have established grievance procedures, and a Global Ethics Line, which operates round-the-clock, in confidence, and in employees' local languages. In 2013, we opened up the Global Ethics Line to third parties.
For security, all our companies operate IT fraud detection systems, and all units use feedback loops to compliance officers to help ensure our websites and other platforms remain safe and secure at all times.
