Nigerian banks misplaced N42.6bn to fraud in three months – FITC

Nigerian industrial banks misplaced a complete of N42.6 billion to fraud and forgeries over the three months from April to June 2024.

The Monetary Establishments Coaching Centre (FITC) disclosed this in its Q2 2024 Fraud and Forgeries report, launched on Saturday.

The report, primarily based on returns on fraud and forgery instances from 28 deposit cash establishments within the nation, highlighted a worrisome surge in fraudulent actions.

The determine surpassed the whole quantity misplaced to fraud in 2023, which stood at N9.4 billion.

An additional breakdown confirmed that the Q2 loss represents an 8,993 p.c improve in comparison with the N468.4 million misplaced in Q1 2024.

This additionally displays a 637 p.c improve in comparison with the N5.7 billion loss recorded in Q2 2023.

The info revealed that miscellaneous and different fraud sorts constituted the biggest loss, representing 96.46 p.c of the whole quantity misplaced, with a price of N41.14 billion.

This was adopted by losses from fraudulent withdrawals and pc/internet fraud, amounting to roughly N781.2 million and N400.7 million, respectively.

FITC urged Nigerian banks to strengthen entry controls to settlement information.

“Entry controls also needs to be strengthened by limiting entry to settlement information to solely a small, vetted group of authorised personnel given the suitable clearance and commonly skilled on the most recent safety protocols.

“The implementation of multi-factor authentication and role-based entry controls can help in lowering the chance of unauthorized modifications to settlement information,” FITC said.