New global research carried out by webexpenses has put expenses under the microscope – and claims people working in the Land of the Long White Cloud are more honest than anywhere else.

The research found New Zealand to be most honest nation, with 95 percent of respondents claiming they would never exaggerate or make up a fraudulent claim. This is in stark contrast to Australia, where just 60 percent of respondents said they’d be honest. The research also found exaggerated mileage claims was the most common reason for being dishonest.

Ryan Corlett, webexpenses general manager for the Asia-Pacific region and North America, says the results also show the importance of technology in encouraging people to be honest. “Interestingly there seemed to be a correlation between fraud and a manual process,” says Corlett. “Regions using a digital system to manage their expenses, such as the 63 percent of New Zealand respondents, reported a lot less tampering with their claims. However, a digital system is only as effective as the people using it.”

Corlett also says the results reveal more. “The results bring to light the changing patterns of expense fraud, the shift to more subtle methods to efficiently enable claims to fall through the cracks and raise no red flags,” he says. “The most prominent area of exaggerating expenses is mileage claims. This could be down to employees feeling it’s completely innocent just rounding up. Our aim with these results is to educate businesses so they can effectively monitor and prevent fraud snowballing and having a detrimental impact on company finances.”

So now we know. Pretty cool to top the table for something positive like this, right?