The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) yesterday said banks in the country lost over N5 billion to fraudsters between January and September 2020.

It said the losses, for only nine months, was comparable to the financial losses insured institutions suffered for the entire 12 months of 2019.

The NDIC’s executive director, corporate services, Mrs. Omotola Abiola-Edewor, stated this at the Corporation’s annual capacity building programme for law enforcement agencies.

The programme with the theme: “Effective investigation and prosecution of banking malpractices that led to the failure of banks in Nigeria”, was held in Lagos.

Abiola-Edewor, who was represented by an NDIC director, Joshua Etopidiok, referenced a report recently released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) as the source of the figures.

She also stated that a total of 52,754 fraud cases were reported to the NDIC against 37,817 in 2018 and 26,182 in 2017, according to the NDIC’s 2019 annual report.

The amount involved in the fraud cases stood at N204.65 billion in 2019, compared to N38.93billion in 2018 and N12.01 billion in 2017, Abiola-Edewor said.

According to her, the total actual loss declined from N15.15billion in 2018 to N5.46billin in 2019.

The NDIC executive director explained that the fraud incidents could be attributed to an increase in the sophistication of fraud-related techniques, such as hacking, cybercrime as well as an increase in Information Technology related products and usage, fraudulent withdrawals and unauthorised credit.

“The channels and instruments through which the reported frauds and forgeries were perpetrated indicated that ATM/Card-related fraud had the highest frequency, accounting for 49.78 per cent of fraud cases followed by web-based internet banking frauds with 21.02 per cent. However, the value of losses was higher in web-based internet banking frauds against ATM card-related fraud,” she said.

Abiola-Edewor noted that the NDIC’s collaboration with sister agencies in law enforcement was to curtail such crimes which were capable of causing irreversible damage to the banking system’s stability.

Also speaking at the event, NDIC legal department director, Mr. B. A. Taribo, said the objective of the workshop is to develop capacity amongst law enforcement agencies in the investigation and prosecution of banking malpractices, with special emphasis on failed banks.

He said the workshop would provide needed synergy among the relevant NDIC staff and the relevant law enforcement officers involved fight against banking fraud.

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