Nigerian banks lost over N5 billion to fraudsters in 9 months – 2020 Reports

Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has revealed that Nigerian banks lost over N5 billion to fraudsters within a nine-month period in 2020.

Speaking on Monday, March 8, at a programme with the theme “Effective investigation and prosecution of banking malpractices that led to the failure of banks in Nigeria” NDIC’s Executive Director, Corporate Services, Mrs Omotola Abiola-Edewor, revealed the staggering figure of bank losses to fraud.

Mrs Abiola-Edewor, who was represented at the occasion by Joshua James Etopidiok,  revealed the figures in a report recently published by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS).

The NIBSS report disclosed that between January and September 2020, banks in Nigeria lost over N5 billion to fraudsters.

“In 2019, a total of 52,754 fraud cases were reported against 37,817 in 2018 and 26,182 in 2017.” Edewor said.

“The amount involved in the fraud cases stood at N204.65 billion, in 2019, compared to N38.93 billion in 2018 and N12.01 billion in 2017”

“The total actual loss declined from N15.15 billion in 2018 to N5.46 billion in 2019. While 5 billion was lost in 2020”

She revealed that the fraud could be attributed to the increase in the sophistication hacking, cybercrime as well as an increase in Information Technology related products and usage, fraudulent withdrawals and unauthorised credit.

‘The channels and instruments through which the reported frauds and forgeries were perpetrated indicated that ATM/Card-related fraud had the highest frequency, accounting for 49.78 per cent of fraud cases followed by web-based internet banking frauds with 21.02 per cent, however, the value of losses was higher in web-based internet banking frauds against ATM card-related fraud,’ she said.