Fatimah Idera
The Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) revealed that fraud and forgeries activities perpetrated across banking platforms in Nigeria has been surged to a N42.6 billion loss in the second quarter (Q2) of the year.
This was released in its Q2 2024 Fraud and Forgeries report released in September.
The report explains that fraud activities heightened in the banking system in the quarter under review when compared to the N468.4 million lost in the first quarter of this year and N9.4 billion lost in the whole of 2023.
According to FITC report it is based on returns on fraud and forgery cases received from 28 deposit money institutions in the country.
A breakdown of the categories of fraud shows that miscellaneous and other fraud constituted the largest loss, representing 96.46 per cent or N41.14 billion of the total loss.
This was followed by N781.2 million and N400.7 million lost to fraudulent withdrawals and computer/web fraud, respectively.
The research firm stated that during the review quarter, fraudulent activities were carried out through various channels, including automated teller machines, web and mobile banking, bank branches, and point-of-sale terminals.
Also, card frauds declined, forgery activities through cheques and cash increased.
The report also shows that fraud recorded through bank branch-related channels rose by 31,497 per cent to N42.2 billion compared to N133.9 million in the first quarter.
However, computer/web frauds also increased from 1,560 per cent to N400.8 million from N24 million.
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