Banks lose over N5bn to fraudsters in 9 months

The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has said that banks in the country lost over N5 billion to fraudsters within the first nine months in 2020.

The NDIC stated that the value of the fraud cases rose to N204.65 billion in 2019, compared to N38.93 billion in 2018 and N12.01 billion in 2017.

NDIC’s Executive Director, Corporate Services, Omotola Abiola-Edewor, disclosed this on Monday, March 8, while speaking at the annual capacity building programme for law enforcement agencies in Lagos.

The theme of the event titled: “Effective Investigation and Prosecution of Banking Malpractices that led to the Failure of Banks in Nigeria”, Abiola-Edewor explained that there has been an increase in the volume of fraud cases in banks in recent years.

According to her, such crimes are capable of causing irreversible damage to the stability of the banking system. Techeconomy.ng gathered that Abiola-Edewor was represented by Joshua James Etopidiok.

She said: “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 percent of fraud cases followed by web based internet banking frauds with 21.02 percent.

“However, the value of losses was higher in web-based internet banking frauds against ATM card-related fraud.”

Also speaking at the event, B. A Taribo, Director, Legal Department, NDIC, disclosed that the objective of the workshop is to develop capacity amongst law enforcement agencies in the investigation and prosecution of banking malpractices, with special emphasis on failed banks.