Geoficiency launches UK platform ahead of major fraud law changes

Geoficiency has announced the deployment of its accounting investigation platform in the UK as companies prepare for new fraud prevention laws and regulatory changes coming into force in the country.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA), set to commence in September 2025, will introduce a new corporate offence for failure to prevent fraud. Under this legislation, organisations will be criminally liable if persons associated with the business, including employees, agents or subsidiaries, commit fraud for its benefit and the organisation has not put in place adequate fraud prevention measures.

This regulatory development follows the path of previous laws such as the UK Bribery Act 2010 and the Criminal Finances Act 2017, each of which brought in failure-to-prevent offences covering bribery and the facilitation of tax evasion, respectively. Large UK corporates will also soon face additional requirements with the upcoming UK SOX regulation in 2026, which is inspired by the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act and will mandate the certification of internal controls in listed companies' annual reports.

Geoficiency, established in France in 2020, has positioned its platform as a response to the compliance and operational demands these laws create. The company reports that 20% of France's CAC 40 companies now use geoficiency's software, and its largest customer base outside France is already in the UK. Geoficiency is deployed across more than 60 groups and 70 countries globally.

The platform claims to manage one billion accounting movements each financial year and has been designed to accommodate a diversity of environments, including different enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, languages, currencies and transaction volumes. It is promoted as being quick to implement, with user training completed in a matter of hours and data integration achievable within two to four weeks.

Having already supported companies navigating France's Sapin II anti-corruption law, the company views the ECCTA and UK SOX as representing similar shifts in regulatory expectations. Geoficiency's technology utilises artificial intelligence to analyse millions of transactions, proactively detect anomalies and risks, and document controls to assist firms in compliance monitoring and reporting.

Olivier Cornet, UK Country Manager, said: 'geoficiency is already used by several of our international customers in the UK. Its local deployment will enable us to further strengthen our support. What makes geoficiency different? An intuitive solution that's quick to implement and, above all, perfectly adapted to the diversity of environments: ERPs, languages, currencies, volumes...'

The ECCTA creates clear obligations for senior management teams, which must now ensure robust processes are in place for the detection and prevention of fraud. Mere tip-offs will not be sufficient, and companies are expected to implement documented procedures that can be presented as evidence of compliance. These requirements extend the personal responsibility and accountability of leadership in large UK organisations.

Geoficiency's software aims to support corporate finance and compliance departments by automating repetitive accounting control tasks and enabling teams to focus more on higher value analytical activities. The company highlights the importance of automation and transparency as themes that are becoming universal in regulatory practice.

Jean-Marc Allouët, CEO, commented: 'The UK is a key step in our European roadmap. The challenges of compliance, transparency and automation are now universal. geoficiency's success is based on a clear promise: to provide a robust, agile and immediately operational technology'.

The platform's deployment model is designed to suit organisations operating in multiple jurisdictions and using various accounting and financial systems, which is common among UK-based multinational corporates. Its existing client list includes companies such as Saint-Gobain, Edenred, SPIE, Cap Gemini, Veolia, SNCF and Elior.

The 2024 Report to the Nations by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners notes the continuing high costs of occupational fraud to global companies, reinforcing the regulatory focus on effective prevention procedures and internal control systems.

Sapin II, the French law that inspired geoficiency's initial deployments, was enacted in 2016 and focused on transparency, anti-corruption and economic modernisation. The UK's legislative response, through the ECCTA and soon UK SOX, will bring a comparable emphasis on structured fraud prevention and mandatory internal control certification in the reporting of publicly listed companies.