Bank branch fraud increased by 87.99% in the second quarter of 2022.

The amount lost to fraud in bank branches that were recorded in the second quarter has increased alarmingly.

This information was made available in the FITC report on forgeries and frauds in Nigerian banks.

The report, which gave insights into fraudulent activities in Nigerian banks for the second quarter of 2022, revealed that twenty-seven thousand three hundred and fifty-six (27,000) incidents of fraud and forgery were recorded.
An assessment of the magnitude-based ranking of fraud categories for the Q2 reveals that mobile fraud accounts for 38.18 percent of the N449 million loss, followed by miscellaneous and other types of fraud accounting for 32.19 percent (N379 million) and suppression of entries at 11.02 percent (N129.64 million).

When the extraordinary amount recorded under the heading of “Miscellaneous fraud” was examined more closely, it became clear that the fraud was committed via E-naira, for which the banks were responsible. The amount involved in bank branch frauds increased from N1.63 billion in the first quarter of 2022 to N3.07 billion in the second quarter of 2022. An 87.99 percent increase was seen within second half of 2022.
With a total of N379 million lost to fraud 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% increase when compared with 60 recorded in the first quarter of the year.

For the second quarter of 2022, deposit money institutions reported the termination of the services of nineteen (19) employees because of their involvement in fraud-related activities in Q2 2022, which indicates a 90 percent increase from the value reported in Q1 2022, where ten bank workers were dismissed for the same reasons.

While advising banks to put adequate measures in place to deter their staff from engaging in fraud, FITC recommended the following,:

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.”

Banks should invest more to ensure that customers understand the modalities of using the e-Naira to prevent a further increase in fraud cases”

Banks to further strengthen their internal control measures for improved efficiency in pre-empting fraud activities and ultimate prevention of frauds.