About

Companies and organisations suffer significant financial losses and reputational damage due to internal fraud. Fraud experts claim an average annual loss of 5% of revenues with a median incident cost of 150.000 dollars, which in the vast majority companies do not recover. Furthermore, other legal and ethical violations, such as harassment, health and safety issues, environmental problems, breaches of confidentiality and personal data, damage the corporate culture and brand name while companies are exposed to serious legal risks (penalties and legal claims). Employees know better than any external auditor, what goes wrong inside the organization. In fact tips (whistleblowing) expose most of the illegal and unethical cases. Although the risks and consequences are serious, most of the companies have not yet implemented whistleblowing systems. However, the European Directive 1937/2019, which must be incorporated into the national legislation by the end of 2021, obliges companies with more than 50 employees to implement reporting channels and to protect whistleblowers. Furthermore, nowadays public opinion seems to change in favour of whistleblowers while whistleblowing is promoted as a good corporate practice to combat illegal activities. So the landscape is changing for whistleblowing, which soon will be a “must have” for companies.

Solution & Product

Fraud Line is offering a complete, cost - effective set of whistleblowing services: - An online, 24/7, secure, mobile and pc friendly whistleblowing platform, that assists the employees to report incidents of wrongdoing in the company. The incident administrator keeps touch with the whistleblowers through the case management system, without compromising the anonymity of the whistleblower. - Experiential eLearning program on whistleblowing, as communication material to empower employees and foster a culture of corporate integrity. The training contains interactive material and quizzes. It gives clear guidance to trainees on how, when and why to make a report and it decomposes obsolete beliefs about whistleblower as a snits. - Customized whistleblowing policy helps the organization prevent misconduct or stop it as early as possible minimizing losses. The policy describes the framework of whistleblowers` protection and the management of the reports. Policies regarding the investigation of the reports, the management of the rights of data subjects and data privacy impact assessment are also necessary and we provide it, when our client fills a structured questionnaire.

Innovation & Scalability

Fraud Line has the opportunity to disrupt the whistleblowing services market through its holistic approach. We are offering a competitive and unique, all in one, complete whistleblowing SaaS including whistleblowing platform, e-training material and a customised policy, making whistleblowing accessible for all companies and organisations, independent of size. The innovative whistleblowing platform combines a tool for the submission of reports with a case management system for reports. It also combines anonymity with an open channel of communication between the whistleblower and the incident administrator. The e-learning training program is combined with the whistleblowing platform. So during the training and when the awareness of the trainees is high, a link of the whistleblowing platform comes up motivating them to report, if something illegal or unethical has come into their attention. The whistleblowing system is scalable since only a small part of the platform and e-training needs to be customized according to the needs of each company. Through an on-line structured questionnaire, the whistleblowing policy and procedures are easily customized. After the incorporation of the European directive into the national legislation of member states, the Global Whistleblowing Software market is expected to see growth rate of 3.74% and may see market size of USD313.0 Million by 2025, according to Advance Market Analytics.

Traction & achievements

Between mid 2019- 2020 we won contracts with market leaders such as Stoiximan, Ellaktor Group, Lamda Development and Attikes Diadromes offering services to 130 legal bodies and 10.000 employees in Germany, France, Kuwait, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, Malta, Portugal Colombia, Cyprus and Greece. In 2020 Fraud Line has received an 150k funding for developing a sports whistleblowing system for Greece (platform and elearning). The project has been included in the National Digital Transformation Bible. In this framework we have cooperated with the General Secretariat of Sports and have implemented a whistleblowing platform for match fixing. The reports will be handled by a team of members of 5 national authorities.

Team & Why Us

Mrs Christina Papazisimou (LLB, PDip, MBA) graduated from the Athens University Law School, received a “Postgraduate Diploma in Negotiations” from the Athens University of Economics and graduated with a scholarship from the postgraduate program "MBA in Internal Audit" of the Economic Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She has worked as a lawyer since 2006 with experience in corporate law and regulatory-compliance policies and procedures. She is an Internal Audit expert for the Council of Europe. She is in charge of the legal and regulatory affairs. Dr Vassilis Stamatopoulos (MSc,PhD,CIPP/E) has graduated from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering off the National Technical University of Athens and completed a master's and doctorate degrees in at the Strathclyde University in Glasgow with a scholarship. He is in charge of the technical operations of Fraud Line and acts as the Managing Director. Mr Alexandros Mathioudakis is an IT professional with expertise in e-learning content development. The team has complementary background, knowledge and skills. We have managed to successfully overcome problems and difficulties which made us a close-knit team. We share a common vision, to enhance the corporate culture of integrity and protect our clients from the consequences of illegal activities in the companies. We also collaborate with sectoral experts depending on the context of the project we undertake.

Funding Needs

Looking for 180.000 euros to develop an innovative “Decentralized Whistleblowing Blockchain Network to empower citizens expose unethical and illegal activity in public and private sector”.