The amount of losses attributed to fraud in Ghana’s banks and specialized deposit-taking institutions in 2021 significantly increased, rising to GH 61 million from a loss of GH 25 million in 2020, or a 144 percent rise year-over-year.
The 2021 Banking, Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions (B&SDI), and Electronic Money Issuers (EMI) fraud report included a description of this.
The impact of COVID-19 has led to a gradual shift from a cash-reliant financial sector to a cash-light financial sector through the use of electronic products and services, which has led to the involvement of fraudsters who prey on vulnerable customers who are not knowledgeable about how to use these electronic products and services, as was seen in the 2020 Banking, Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions (B&SDI) and Electronic Money Issuers (EMI) fraud report.
- BoG wins Central Banking’s FinTech Policy of the Year Award
- The Court of Appeal upholds the BoG’s request to send Nduom’s case to arbitration.
The year 2021, however, showed a minimal decline of 12.09% in the number of attempted fraud cases of 2,347 for the Banking and SDI sector as compared to 2,670 in 2020.
The significant fraud types that accounted for this figure included ATM card/POS fraud, impersonation, lending and credit fraud, forgery and manipulation of documents, cash suppression and E-money fraud.
ATM card/POS related fraud
ATM card/POS related fraud recorded the highest loss of GH¢22million. This can be attributed to negligence of some customers and weak systems of some financial institutions.
Impersonation
Another significant fraud type was impersonation which recorded a loss of GH¢10 million. This loss can be attributed to lack of due diligence on the part of bank staff and customers of financial institutions when carrying out transactions.
Staff involvement
Staff involvement in fraud, which constitutes 53.46% of total fraud cases, continued to increase in the year under review.
EMI related fraud
The Electronic Money Issuers (EMI) sector reported a significant number of mobile money (MOMO) fraud incidents and loss values in 2021. EMIs recorded 12,350 MOMO-related fraud incidents in 2021. The total value of fraud reported by EMIs for 2021 amounted to GH¢14.2 million. The total E-Money-related loss recorded by EMIs in 2021 amounted to approximately GH¢12.8 million.
