Yemisi Izuora
The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has lamented increase in incidences of fraud and forgeries in the country’s banking system.
The situation which has caused serious worries to the Corporation appear to have taken a significant leap in 2014 despite efforts by authorities to curb it.
In a speech by the managing director and chief executive of the NDIC Umaru Ibrahim at the 2015 workshop for business editors and finance correspondents association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Ilorin, Kwara state, a total of 10,612 of fraudulent cases were reported in 2014 as against 3,786 cases in 2013.
The figure showed an increase of 183 percent which he said was very worrisome.
According to Ibrahim, The amount involved in 2013 was N21.80 billion as against N25.61 billion in 2014 which was a 17.5% increase with expected/actual loss increase from N5.76 billion in 2013 to N6.19 billion in 2014.
He disclosed that the types and nature of frauds and forgeries were largely web-based (On-line banking)/ATM card related, fraudulent transfer/withdrawal of deposit frauds and suppression of customer deposits amongst others.
The managing director, blamed the situation to weak IT infrastructure, poor internal controls due to prevalence of contract clerks and tellers.
“It was also discovered that temporary staff, clerks and tellers accounted for 64% of the frauds and forgeries in 2014, which require urgent attention to improve the electronic payments controls, IT security, human capital and integrity profiling as well as motivation of staff” he said