Customers lose N1.17bn to fraud across Nigerian banks in three months

A report recently released by the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) has revealed that about N1.17 billion was lost to fraud across 24 banks operating in the country in the second quarter of 2022.

The report, which gave insights into fraudulent activities in Nigerian banks between April and June 2022 also revealed that more bank workers in Nigeria are taking advantage of their access to defraud customers.

It revealed that 19 employees of banks were sacked in the second quarter of 2022 due to their involvement in fraudulent activities, representing 90 per cent compared to the 10 recorded in the first quarter of 2022.

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A comparison of the data with the same quarter in 2021 showed an alarming 375 per cent increase, as only 4 dismissals for fraud were recorded in the second quarter of 2021.

With a total of N1.17 billion lost to frauds across 24 banks in Nigeria in the second quarter of 2022, 73 bank staff were reported to have been involved in the activities, a 27.6 per cent increase when compared with 60 recorded in the first quarter of the year.

The report gives credence to wide speculations that most fraudulent activities on bank customers’ accounts are carried out in connivance with bank staff.

With the recent ‘Japa’ trend hitting the IT departments of most Nigerian banks, there has been an increase in the number of bank customers losing their hard-earned money to fraud due to the technical lapses left by the brain drain.

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Some banks’ insider sources have also fingered tech staff who are planning their exit for committing some of the atrocities to get enough money to fund their travel.

While advising banks to put adequate measures in place to deter their staff from engaging in fraud, FITC said: “Given the growing number of employees involved in fraudulent activities, banks should exercise extra caution when employing new staff or contracting an outsourcing firm for employment.

“As a measure to curb the involvement of staff in fraudulent activities, staff who have also acted with high integrity in circumstances in which they would have acted otherwise should be duly commended and rewarded for their actions; this sends a positive message to other staff and they too would want to be recognised and rewarded as well.”