Ghana’s banking sector highly exposed to fraud – BoG
Ghana’s banking sector is said to be highly exposed to different fraud types such as cyber fraud, suppression of cash and deposits, forgery of documents and alteration of accounts.
Dr. Joseph France, the Head of Financial Stability at the Bank of Ghana made the remarks at a sensitization workshop organized by the central bank in collaboration with financial service providers and the judiciary on financial crime.
”The Banking sector is currently highly exposed to fraud types such as cyber fraud, suppression of cash and deposits, forgery of documents and alteration of accounts.
Criminals are also using the banking sector to facilitate fraudulent activities such as money laundering. I must say that the bad guys are on rampage probably because there are some loose ends,” France noted.
Data presented by Mrs. Barbara Otoo, of the Financial Stability Department of the Bank, shows that among the various types of financial fraud that Ghana is exposed to, cyber fraud has the highest value of attempted fraud but fortunately less than one per cent resulted in losses – that is approximately GH¢233,000.
Fraud cases relating to cyber-crime involved unauthorized access to the banking system of financial institutions by external parties, email fraud and crimes perpetrated through internet banking and other localised payments and mobile banking platforms, Mrs. Otoo said in her presentation.
A banking advisor at the Bank of Ghana, Mrs Grace Akrofi, said a research done in November 2016 by the Africa Union Commission, in partnership with Symantec found that Ghana was among the top ten most cyber attacked countries in Africa.
She further stated that, the study identified more than 400,000 malware incidents, 44 million spam incidents and 280,000 bots incidents in Ghanaian institutions.
“Thus, while increasing use of technology has contributed significantly to the deepening of Ghana’s banking industry, we as players in the sector need to be conscious of security lapses instigated by technology,” she added.
The objective of the workshop is to deliberate on measures needed to curb the increasing spate of financial crimes in Ghana in order to ensure stability in the financial system.
By Bismark Elorm Addo
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