This is the first PwC survey in Vietnam. According to the survey, this crime rate is higher than the average in Asia-Pacific's 46% and the global rate of 49%. Even though 40% of the asked people said they hadn't encountered any criminals, it's highly likely that the crimes just haven't been exposed yet.

The most common crime in Vietnam is embezzlement with 40% votes and bribes and corruption with 36%. 11% of the asked people don't know or don't want to say. About 53% of the criminals in major cases are insiders with 61% of them are low-level or middle-level managers.

32% of the surveyed said they suffered more than USD100,000 in damage not to mention damage to reputation and business relations. Marcus Paciocco from PwC Vietnam said some measurable financial losses included legal costs or actual loss of money. However, other damage, such as to reputation or image could lead to much larger losses.

However, most of the crimes were only discovered by accident or internal alerts. If internal audit is a powerful tool that helps discover 14% of the crimes in the world then this rate in Vietnam is only 3%. The hotlines in Vietnam also help to discover 3% of the crimes while the rate in the Asia-Pacific region was 7%.

Paciocco said that a negative side of a rapidly-developing economy was that firms only focused on sales growth instead of internal controls.

The survey pointed out that since the Vietnamese economy heavily depends on cash, it was an ideal environment for money laundering. It is a good sign that firms have a strong awareness about the issue with 86% firms said they had followed all procedures about money laundering prevention.