The American Association of Monetary Trasparency has proposed a new rule requiring that employees of financial institutions blow an actual whistle when reporting potential malfeasance.
“Many of the businesses we represent have complained that the current process is too anonymous,” says council president Gina Kasminski. “They say they have no way of knowing who the person is who’s actually blowing the whistle.”
The new rule, she says, would not only make it clear who’s doing the blowing, but also what the whistle is being blow about – with one tweet required for improprieties under $10,000, and an additional tweet for every $10,000 above that.
“We would also require that companies purchase the whistles for their employees so they don’t incur that expense,” says Kasminski. “Nothing should get in the way of people doing what they believe is the right thing to do.”
Most impacted businesses are telling Kasminski they would welcome the rule, she says, and some are already taking steps to comply with it.
“We hadn’t budgeted to purchase any whistles this year,” says CFO Myrna Artmann of Newark’s Third General Funding & Trust. “But we’re in the process of finding the necessary funding, so we can encourage more people to help us keep on our toes.”
Artmann says employees wishing to blow the whistle can simply go to Human Resources, fill out a whistle request form, and choose from either a plastic or metal mdel.
“And as an added benefit,” she says, “they get to keep the whistle once they’re finished blowing it!”
