An FITC analysis has revealed that bank customers in Nigeria lost a total of N2.72 billion to fraud in the first and second quarters of 2022.
According to The Punch, it was that a total of 67,878 instances of fraud were reported throughout this time.
This was supported by the second quarter report that our correspondent downloaded from the FITC website.
The Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, and all licensed banks in Nigeria are members of the Nigerian Banker’s Committee, which also includes FITC’s institutional members.
Compared to the first quarter of 2022, the data revealed a decrease in the number of fraud incidents across the banks.
A total of 27,356 occurrences of fraud and forgeries were reported in Q2 as opposed to 40,522 cases in the first quarter of 2022, showing a fall of 32.49 percent between the two periods, the report states.
Additionally, during the time period, the total amount recorded as being implicated in fraud cases declined by 40.5%, from N14.65 billion in Q1 2022 to N8.78 billion in Q2 2022.
Similarly, there was a minor decrease of 23.66% in the total amount lost owing to fraud incidents, going from N1.54 billion in the first quarter of 2022 to N1.17 billion in the second quarter.
The report revealed that the most common types of fraud were computer/web fraud, POS fraud, and mobile fraud, which includes fraud activities through USSD transactions.
“Evaluating the overall amount lost to frauds in Q2 2022 reveals that Mobile Fraud accounts for 38.18% at a loss of N449m, followed by Miscellaneous & other types of fraud accounting for 32.19% (N379m), and Suppression of Entries at 11.02%,” the report stated in part (N129.64m).
“The fraud was committed using E-naira, for which the banks were responsible, as was established by a closer examination of the unusual amount recorded under the miscellaneous fraud.
“The analysis shows that there was a drop in the amount lost to fraud via the online, ATM, and PoS channels with reference to the returns by payment channel.”
“The amount lost through the web route significantly dropped from N1.07 billion to N98.4 million, while the amount lost through the ATM channel dropped from N43 million to N5.9 million. On the other hand, a rise in the amount lost through bank branch and mobile fraud channels was seen, rising from N103.45 million to N618 million (497.56%) and N270 million to N449.03 million (65.74%), respectively.
The FITC added that in order to be more effective at detecting fraud activities and ultimately preventing fraud, banks must further strengthen their internal control procedures.
The CBN has also placed at least 6,047 bank clients’ Bank Verification Numbers on a monitoring list due to possible fraudulent transactions.
The Nigeria Interbank Settlement System claims that Nigeria has one of the world’s most sophisticated electronic payment infrastructures. It said that the expansion of channels and the speed at which transactions were processed had given fraudulent transactions a foothold.
According to the “NIBSS Insight: Fraud in the Nigeria Financial Services” report, even a 1% success rate would lead to 100,000 successful fraudulent transactions every day.
“This would have a direct effect on customer confidence in the entire system and could have a substantial impact on both our drive for financial inclusion and the CBN cashless policy.”
