Bank losses to fraud decreased by 77.62 percent to N468.42 million in the first quarter of 2024, down from N2.09 billion in the last quarter of 2023.
Additionally, staff involvement in fraud declined by 12.96 percent, with cases decreasing from 54 in Q4 2023 to 47 in Q1 2024.
However, the number of staff terminations increased significantly, with 35 terminations recorded in Q1 2024 compared to only nine in Q4 2023.
The Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) disclosed these findings in its recently released ‘Report on Fraud and Forgeries in Nigerian Banks for Q1 2024.’
According to the report, the total amount involved in fraud cases also saw a decline, falling by 56.73 percent from N6.91 billion to N2.99 billion.
FITC reported receiving a total of 75 returns on cases of fraud and forgery from 24 deposit money institutions. These returns included 20 in January, 25 in February, and 30 in March.
Fraud has surged in recent years due to the rapid growth and adoption of digital payment channels. In its 2023 fraud report, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System revealed that fraudsters successfully scammed 80,658 bank customers within the year.
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.
Similar to Q4 2023, computer/web fraud, mobile fraud, and POS-related fraud were the top three prevalent forms of fraudulent activity. Mobile fraud had the highest ranking, accounting for N768.84 million (25.73 percent) of the total amount. This was followed by computer/web fraud at N680.75 million (22.78 percent), and POS fraud at 18.93 percent.
FITC stated, “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 for suspicious patterns and anomalies.”
