Amid Hardship, Nigerian Banks Record Over N472million Stolen By Frausters In Three Months

A report by the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) has disclosed that Nigerian bank customers lost over N472million to fraudsters in the first quarter of 2023.

It was also disclosed that there was a total of 12,553 cases of fraud recorded within this period.

This was according to the Q1 report obtained on the website of FITC.

FITC’s institutional members are members of the Nigerian Banker’s Committee, which comprises the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation and all licensed banks in Nigeria.

The data, however, showed a decline in losses compared to what was lost to fraudulent banking activities in Q4, 2022.
According to FITC, a total of N3.18bn was lost to fraudsters across banking platforms in Q4 2022, which meant that the losses declined by 85.13 per cent in Q1 2023.

The FITC data also revealed that there was a 79.44 per cent decrease in the total amount involved in fraud cases in Q1 2023 compared to the previous quarter, with a decrease from N12.58bn to N2.59bn.

The total number of fraud cases reported in Q1, 2023 also declined by 14.07 per cent.

According to the report, a total of 12,553 cases were reported in the first quarter of this year compared with 14,609 cases recorded in the preceding quarter.

It was also noted that fraud occurred mostly through mobile, computer/web, and PoS, which was consistent with the trend from the previous quarter.

The report read, “For Q1 2023 under review, an analysis of the magnitude-based ranking of fraud categories shows that mobile fraud has the highest ranking which accounts for N1.1bn (42.72 per cent), and this is followed by the computer/web fraud category at N646m (24.99 per cent). This was followed by PoS fraud at N450m (17.41 per cent) and fraudulent withdrawals at N139m (5.36 per cent).”

From the total amount lost in Q1, 2023, the data also revealed that mobile fraud accounted for 34.07 per cent at N161m followed by computer/web fraud accounting for 27.69 per cent at N130m and fraudulent withdrawals representing 24.72 per cent at N116million.