In three months, fraudsters steal N472m from bank customers

According to a FITC report, fraud cost Nigerian bank customers N472 million in the first three months of 2023.

Additionally, it was revealed that 12,553 fraud cases in total were reported during this time.

This was according to the Q1 report that The PUNCH downloaded from the FITC website.

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

In contrast to the losses caused by fraudulent banking activities in Q4, 2022, the data indicated a decline in losses.

In Q4 2022, N3.18 billion was lost to fraudsters across banking platforms, according to FITC. This means that losses decreased by 85.13 percent in Q1 2023.

The FITC data also showed that the total amount involved in fraud cases fell by 79.44 percent in Q1 2023 compared to Q4 2022, from N12.58 billion to N2.59 billion.

Additionally, there were 14.07% fewer reported fraud cases overall in Q1 2023.

In comparison to the 14,609 cases recorded in the previous quarter, a total of 12,553 cases were reported in the first quarter of this year.

Additionally, it was noted that, in line with the pattern from the previous quarter, fraud was primarily committed via mobile, computer/web, and point-of-sale.

According to the report, “For the first quarter of 2023 under review, an analysis of the magnitude-based ranking of fraud categories shows that mobile fraud has the highest ranking, accounting for N1.1bn (42.72%), and is followed by the computer/web fraud category at N646m (24.99%). PoS fraud totaling N450 million (17.31%) and fraudulent withdrawals totaling N139 million (5.36%) came next.

The data also showed that mobile fraud accounted for 34.07 percent of the total amount lost in Q1, 2023, followed by computer/web fraud at 27.69 percent, at N130 million, and fraudulent withdrawals at 24.72 percent, at N116 million.