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Since 1991 Bulgaria has embarked upon legislative changes which mark the abandonment of centrally planned economic management in favour of free economic enterprise. This has entailed the adoption of a new constitution and changes in laws governing the operation of banks, credit and foreign exchange activities. In particular, the foreign exchange regime seeks to liberalise access to the foreign exchange market whilst controlling those aspects which may lend themselves to attempts to destabilise the foreign exchange regime itself criminal activity and money laundering.

Intergovernmental bodies, governments, agencies, commercial and philanthropic institutions, when deciding whether or not to invest in low income nations where there is developmental uncertainty, do not now include formal appraisals of investment risk as including economic crime and its milieu correlates. Informal evaluations seem common, but appear to be hazarded by psychosocial and methodological processes and problems of which conventional decision makers are probably not aware. The authors consider these cognitive, group information processing and data adequacy hazards, and seek to examine investment risk as it relates to published reports bearing on economic crime and associated factors. The inadequacy of current data and assumptions is emphasised. Bulgaria is the illustrative case of poor data misinterpreted, eg the role of the underground economy, of careless ‘master trait’ summary reporting, and thus of exaggerated uncertainty for investment. Because the undertakings of the newly elected Bulgarian Government affirm the principles of loan recipient soundness long demanded by the IMF, now the criterion for World Bank loans, there is reason to believe Bulgaria will increasingly be viewed as a candidate for investment and Western European integration. Nevertheless economic crime and its associated features pose a measurement and forecast weighting challenge as ‘intangibles’. It is the better definition and more rigorous measurement of these, and avoidance of distorting information‐transmitting events which can exaggerate error, which remains to be done. Hard criminological evidence supporting confidence exists, for examination of earlier crime rates shows a society with low crime rates, such that current transitional fraud and violence may be but anomalies. Further, by assigning arbitrary positive values to cultural history and current governmental intentions, it may be concluded, that given evidence of modernisation of regulations and massive police reform, and a necessary speed in instituting change, development growth is likely. The authors are themselves, like most forecasting institutions, cautiously optimistic about the investment potential of Bulgaria. They nevertheless counsel that decision makers ignore at their peril the dangers in any low income country of crime and its correlated milieu.

Corruption is one of the biggest challenges of our time. There is corruption in every country, regardless of its location on the map, and whether it is rich or poor. It is a negative phenomenon that affects everyone: it destroys public policy to its foundations, leads to misuse of resources, destabilises the foundations of even a good government, infringes on the private sector and impedes its progress. It exacerbates poverty, interferes with social and economic development and undermines the foundations of democracy. Instead of fair price, quality and innovation‐based competition, corruption promotes bribery, hinders trade and obstructs new investments.

In recent times, there has been some disquiet within certain sectors of the Singapore business community over the role of auditors in detecting corporate fraud. The cause of this concern can perhaps be attributed partly to the Barings collapse in February 1995 and the subsequent suggestions that the auditors of the Barings subsidiary in Singapore, Barings Futures Singapore Pte Ltd (BFS), may have been negligent in their audit work. More recently, in mid‐1996, a substantial locally listed company, Amcol Holdings Ltd (Amcol), was placed under judicial management amid rumours alleging possible misdeeds by senior executives and directors. The Amcol saga has, once again, focused some attention on the role of auditors and their duty to detect fraud in company accounts.

A unifying theme apparent at this year's Symposium was the need for balance when lifting the veil of bank secrecy: (1) the need to protect civil liberties versus the need to fight crime; (2) the bank's need to balance its role as policeman while furthering its commercial objectives; (3) the necessity of weighing international cooperation against the awareness that individual nations jealously guard their own legislative regime; (4) the dichotomy of technology that serves both to protect and penetrate secrecy; (5) the balance required when investigating crimes.