Banks losses to fraud declined by 77.62 percent to N468.42 million in the first quarter of 2024 from N2.09 billion in the last quarter of 2023.

Also, staff involvement in fraud declined by 12.96 percent, decreasing from 54 cases in Q4 2023 to 47 cases in Ql 2024.

However, 35 staff appointment was terminated in Q1 2024, significantly higher from Q4 2023 where staff termination were only recorded for nine cases.

The Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) revealed this in its ‘Report on Fraud and Forgeries Report in Nigerian Banks for Q1 2024,’ just released.

According to the organisation, there was a decline in the total amount involved in fraud case likewise. This fell by 56.73 percent from N6.91 billion to N2.99billion.

FITC disclosed that it got a total of 75 returns on cases of fraud and forgery from twenty-four (24) deposit money institutions.

20 returns were received in January, while 25 returns were received in February, and 30 returns were received in March.

Fraud has witnessed a boom in recent years because of the rapid growth and adoption of digital payments channels.

In its fraud report for 2023, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System revealed that fraudsters successfully scammed 80,658 bank customers within the year.

N17.67 billion was lost in reported fraud cases in 2023.

In Q1, 2024, a total of 11,472 cases were reported, a 7.52 percent decline from the 12,405 cases recorded in Q4, 2023.

Like Q4,2023, computer/web fraud, mobile fraud, and POS-related fraud were the top three prevalent forms of fraudulent activity. The ranking magnitude-base of fraud categories revealed that mobile fraud had the highest ranking, accounting for N768.84 million (25.73 percent) of the total amount. It was followed by Computer/Web fraud at N680.75 million (22.78 percent). POS Fraud came next at (18.93 percent).

FITC said, “The F&F report for Q1 2024 shows a significant decline in at least 60 percent of the areas measured when compared to the Q4 2023 report and this is a welcome development.

“We need to understudy fraud control activities in this quarter and improve upon same to ensure that going forward the numbers keep dropping while also implementing continuous vigilance and proactive measures. Banks need to ensure the application of advanced fraud detection technologies and analytics to continuously monitor transactions of suspicious patterns and anomalies.” (BusinessDay: Text, Excluding Headline)

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