Financial fraud is a global hazardous problem and has affected the economy around the world. Due to the dramatic increase of financial fraud which results in loss of billions of dollars worldwide each year, several modern techniques in detecting fraud are continually evolved and applied to many business fields. Data mining is one of the most effective and powerful tool for detecting financial fraud had been used widely by the business analysts, researchers and detectors. This survey paper formalizes different types of financial frauds, presents a comprehensive investigation on existing fraud detection systems and financial fraud detection practices using data mining methods.