GHANA – The Bank of Ghana has said that the various forms of advanced technologies adopted by financial institutions have made the banking sector more susceptible to various forms of fraud.
Bank of Ghana revealed this while releasing the annual report on fraud in the Banking Industry which revealed a slight increase in the number of fraud cases reported by the banks to the apex bank.
According to the report, the banking industry reported a total number of 2,295 fraud cases in 2019 as compared to 2,175 fraud cases reported in 2018.
The Bank attributed the marginal increase in fraud cases to improved efforts by the Financial Stability Department to identify, monitor and to ensure compliance with reporting of fraud cases in the industry.
Ghana’s central bank however noted that use of advanced technologies presented a new form of risk to banks.
According to the Bank, the use of advanced technology has made it easier for crimes such as phishing, identity theft, card skimming, phishing, email fraud which were not common before to become prevalent in the banking sector.
In 2019, the industry reported a total fraud value of approximately US$19.97 million with approximately US$5 million of this amount was reported as losses and US$14.25 million was unsuccessful or recovered.
Similar to the year 2018, in 2019, suppression of cash and deposits accounted for the largest portion (77 percent) of the total number of fraud cases reported to the Bank of Ghana.
The Bank further noted that 94 per cent of the fraud cases reported as suppression of cash and deposits were perpetrated by staff (either contract or permanent) of the financial institutions.
The alarming rate of involvement of bank staff in the perpetration of fraud in the banking sector, calls for significant reforms in the engagement, remuneration and disengagement processes of employees and contractual staff of financial institutions.
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