During the first three months of 2023, bank customers in Nigeria lost a total of N472 million due to fraudulent activity, according to a report compiled by FITC.
Additionally, it was revealed that a total of 12,553 instances of fraudulent activity were documented during this time period.
This was stated in the Quarterly Report for the First Quarter that was obtained by The PUNCH from the FITC website.
The Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, and all licenced banks in Nigeria are members of the Nigerian Banker’s Committee, which is one of the institutional members of FITC.
However, the data demonstrated a decrease in losses when compared to what was lost due to fraudulent banking activities in the fourth quarter of 2022.
According to FITC, across all banking platforms, a total of N3.18 billion was lost to fraud in the fourth quarter of 2022. This meant that the losses decreased by 85.13 percent in the first quarter of 2023.
The FITC data also showed that there was a decrease in the total amount involved in fraudulent cases in Q1 2023 compared to the previous quarter, with the amount dropping from N12.58 billion to N2.59 billion. This represented a decrease of 79.44 percent from the previous quarter.
The overall number of instances of fraud that were reported during the first quarter of 2023 decreased by 14.07 percent.
The report indicates that there were a total of 12,553 cases reported during the first quarter of this year, which is significantly lower than the 14,609 cases that were recorded during the previous quarter.
In line with the pattern seen in the preceding quarter, it was discovered that the majority of fraudulent activity occurred at point-of-sale terminals, mobile devices, and computers/websites.
The following is an excerpt from the report: “For the first quarter of 2023 under review, an analysis of the magnitude-based ranking of fraud categories shows that mobile fraud has the highest ranking, which accounts for N1.1 billion (42.72 percent), and this is followed by the computer/web fraud category at N646 million (24.99 percent).” This was followed by fraudulent withdrawals totaling N139 million (5.36%) and fraud at point of sale terminals totaling N450 million (17.41%).
The data also showed that mobile fraud accounted for 34.07 percent of the total amount lost in the first quarter of 2023, which was N161 million. This was followed by computer/web fraud, which accounted for 27.69 percent of the total amount lost, which was N130 million, and fraudulent withdrawals, which represented 24.72 percent of the total amount lost, which was N116 million.