Almost all the talk about fraud is about what to do after a fraud has taken place: it's dealing with consequences when it should be about causes.

Not why people commit fraud - that's easy - they do it because it's high-profit, low risk in most cases. Why rob a bank when you can just persuade someone to send more money than many banks have on hand in any case? 

The real issue that must be addressed is not talked about: preventing the fraud in the first place, on being preactive not reactive. 

This Forum is about finding ways to get the message that fraud is all around and that the only defence is to be aware of the risks. 

We might think that's easy but it's proving to be very difficult. We have cultural, educational and even generational attitudes to consider. 

Yet, all fraud is fundamentally simple and fundamentally the same. All fraud starts with "hello" and ends when the potential victim says "no". 

Enormous amounts of money are spent by companies and enforcement agencies on dealing with the consequences of fraud, including compulsory schemes to make banks and other payments companies pay to customers amounts customers have paid to fraudsters. Enormous amounts of techology are developed and deployed to identify frauds at a late stage or even after the fraud has been concluded. Enormous amounts of time and money are spent in trying to recover proceeds of fraud. But what if.... What if some of that money was diverted to helping to prevent fraud happening in the first place. It's possible, it's even easy, but it's not profitable. It's time that the efforts and money were refocussed. This Forum will look at strategies to do exactly that, while also supporting law enforcement especially in relation to cross-border fraud.