Scam Alert: How Nigerians Lose N12.30 Billion to Bank Frauds
Despite the economic hardship Nigerians are subjected to, it is disheartening to note that the country’s banking sector has recorded up to 28% fraud cases in four years.
The sector reported more fraud cases as it lost a total of N12.30 billion to various frauds between 2014 and 2017. In terms of volume, the sector recoded 41,461 fraud cases during the year under review.
The breakdown of the fraud report shows that fraud volume stood at 1,461 in 2014, 10,743 in 2015, 19,531 in 2016 and 25,043 in 2017.
Attempted fraud in value terms was N7.75 billion in 2014, N4.37 billion in 2015, N4.36 billion in 2016 and N4.03 billion in 2017. Actual loss recorded was N6.21 billion in 2014, N2.25 billion in 2015, N2.19 billion in 2016 and N1.63 billion in 2017.
Adebisi Shonubi, Managing Director/CEO, Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) disclosed disclosed this at the third Annual Banking Security Summit organised by MAXUT Consulting in partnership with OneSpan, global data Security Company in Lagos.
Shonubi, who spoke on “Industry fraud overview with focus on mobile and payments related frauds”, said the industry lost N6.22 billion in 2014 on attempted fraud value of N7.76 billion.
Represented by Olufemi Fadairo, head, industry security services, he said that the sum of N2.26 billion was lost in 2015 on attempted fraud value of N4.37 billion in 2015.
According to Shonubi more fraud cases were reported in 2017, with an increase of 28 per cent when compared with 2016 but with less financial loss.
Gender fraud analysis during the period showed male accounted for 73 per cent, while female accounted for 23 per cent.
Automated Teller Machine (ATM) accounted for the highest fraud in 2017 with an actual loss of N497.64 million and a fraud volume of 9,823.
Speaking at the event, Mike Odusami, CEO/President MAXUT consulting said that the summit was geared towards making the financial system safer for people to have trust in the system.
“Our solution as a technology company is really about fraud prevention and making sure that this is the person the bank authorizes because most of the transactions are not physical, they are done through electronic channels, and also in the background we are monitoring everything that is going on in the system”, he said.
He added that the company was committed to making the banking system safer for people to have confidence in the system.
Lots of frauds are done in that channel either through sim swap, stolen phones and kidnaps, which are the three mobile threats in Nigeria, so we are working with the CBN to develop a solution to curtail that.
He added that Nigeria was still behind in open banking security, and therefore advised Nigerians to shield themselves by ensuring they lock their phones and sims, and to always do SIM swap and recycle checks.
