U.S. is Final Stop for Laundered Cash
The United States generates around 43.6 percent of the
world's illicit cash, according to a recent study by the Inside Fraud
Bulletin. Italy is a distant second with 5.3 percent, followed by Russia at
5.2 percent and the United Kingdom at 2.4 percent.
The study also found that the United States topped the
list in the laundering of those illicit funds, with 18.9 percent of the
illegal funds being laundered or invested there. The Cayman Islands had the
second highest percentage of laundered funds at 4.9 percent, followed by
Russia with 4.2 percent, Italy with 3.7 percent and China with 3.3 percent.
Countries that proved to have the most difficulty
tracing the origins of illegal funds included Mauritius, Vatican City,
Macau, Nauru, Luxembourg, South Africa and the Channel Islands.
Although the United Kingdom wasn't in the top 10 of
countries most used to launder money, it was among the most popular
locations for holding offshore cash.
Study Finds South Africans More Likely to Become Gambling Addicts
Gamblers in South Africa are more likely to develop a
gambling problem than their counterparts in industrialized nations, a study
conducted by the National Responsible Gaming Programme of South Africa
found.
The research, however, found that the gambling picture
in South Africa is in line with the international picture of gambling.
Conducted during the last 10 months, the survey of more
than 5,800 South Africans in urban areas with easy access to commercial
gambling suggests that one-third of South Africans gamble regularly.
Sixty-eight percent of regular gamblers play the national lottery. Among
regular gamblers, the incidence of problem gambling was found to be 50
percent higher than in developed countries.
The research also uncovered that most gamblers in South
Africa are in the middle-income bracket. Peter Collins, executive director
of the National Responsible Gaming Programme, said the propensity to gamble
on the lottery was more skewed to the poorer population.
"Gambling is a novelty in South Africa," he said.
"People don't understand that even if they buy 500 lottery tickets, they
still have only a miniscule chance of winning."
Among people who only play the lottery, 1.74 percent in
South Africa were found to have gambling problems. That compares to 0.1
percent of lottery players in the United Kingdom.
Fraud Rises in Online Purchases
A new report from the U.S. National Consumers League
shows that consumers reported $4.3 million in losses from online fraud in
the first 10 months of 2001, compared to $3.3 million in losses during all
of 2000.
The NCL's Internet Fraud Watch recorded an average of
$636 per person in losses from fraudulent online transactions, with 63
percent of those losses relating to online auctions. That's down from 78
percent of 2000's online fraud losses relating to online auctions.
The average loss for general merchandise fraud is $845.
Comparatively, the average loss for online auction fraud is $478, indicating
that while consumers are more likely to be defrauded through online
auctions, other types of fraud are more costly.
Instant Messenger Use Records Significant Growth
Jupiter Media Metrix released a report last week that
outlines a growth trend in the number of users and amount of time spent
exchanging online messages in the last year.
Between September 2000 and September 2001, instant
message use at work rose 34 percent to 13.4 million from 10 million users.
At home, instant message use increased 28 percent to 53.8 million users from
42 million.
Jupiter's report shows that instant messaging dominator
AOL has the most users, with 8.8 million people using the service at work
and 41.7 million using it at home. AOL's main competitors in the IM arena
are MSN and Yahoo!, and the report indicated that those two IM services are
growing. MSN's number of home users grew by 94 percent during the last year,
and Yahoo! increased its at-home user base by 25 percent. AOL's number of
at-home users rose 21 percent.
Charles Buchwalter, Jupiter's vice president of media
research, said instant messaging is impacting the future of the Internet.
"Instant messaging in general is contributing
significantly to the overall growth of the Web and the digital universe," he
said.
Help-Line Calls Show More Proof of Gender-Based Gambling
Differences
Yale University researchers analyzed calls to a
Connecticut-based gambling help line to determine that gambling differences
mostly fall along gender lines.
The study showed that men opt for more strategic and
face-to-face games like card games and sports betting and women often chose
games that involve less personal interaction, like slot machines and bingo.
The calls also showed that women start gambling later in
life than men, look for help with gambling problems sooner than men and are
more likely to report depression and suicide attempts caused by gambling. In
addition, men have a one in five chance of abusing alcohol while gambling,
and women exhibited a one in six chance of alcohol abuse in conjunction with
gambling.
Marc Potenza of the Yale School of Medicine and the lead
author of the study noted that gender-based differences should be taken into
consideration when treating compulsive gamblers.
"There do appear to be significant differences in males
and females with gambling problems, both in the patterns of gambling as well
as the progression," he said. "How to take those differences into account in
treatment is important and is something that needs to be investigated
further."
Ebay is Fastest-Growing Tech Firm in US
Consulting firm Deloitte & Touche released its annual
Fast 500 listing of the fastest-growing high-tech firms last week. The big
winner is Ebay, which recorded a five-year growth rate of 115, 874 percent.
The average growth rate for companies in the Fast 500 is
6,000 percent.
From 1996 to 2000, Ebay's sales skyrocketed from
$372,000 to more than $431 million. The auction site left its competitors in
the dust with its growth rate.
A company's appearance on the list signifies sustained
revenue growth over five years. Ebay has said its intent is to achieve
continued growth through aggressive expansion into overseas markets and
adding more product categories.
After Cash, Checks Still More Popular than E-Payments
According to the Federal Reserve, Americans are still
using checks as the main alternative to cash, even though they are writing
fewer of them in favor of using electronic payment systems.
Internet electronic payments are at such a small volume
that they are almost immeasurable, according to the Fed's in-depth look at
the nation's retail payment system, the first of such studies in 20 years.
The study found that consumers and businesses wrote more than 50 billion
checks last year, compared to 30 billion electronic payments.
Electronic payments are defined as credit and debit card
transactions and electronic funds transfers. Most of the growth in
electronic payments comes from non-Internet use of electronic payments, said
Richard Oliver, senior vice president of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta.
UN Releases Report on E-Commerce Development
A new U.N. report focuses on the state of the global
Internet economy and the challenges countries face in competing in an
ever-shrinking world.
The 252-page study, titled "E-commerce and Development
Report 2001,'' looks at the opportunities and obstacles faced by developing
countries in the booming world of electronic commerce.
The report points out that remote and landlocked
countries are ideally placed to profit from e-commerce, which does not pose
transportation cost disadvantages. Businesses in wealthy countries are
making use of the cheaper labor available in developing countries for call
centers and other online and offline services.
Certain industries, such as tourism, also offer ideal
opportunities for developing countries to make big advances without huge
expenditure, the study said. It highlighted two Web sites run by national
tourist boards--tanzania-web.com and jamaicatravel.com.
However, developing countries still face problems of
limited access to computers, cell phones and even electricity.