The year 2022 recorded 2998 cases of attempted fraud cases for the banking and Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs) sectors, as compared to 2347 cases in 2021, representing a 27.74% increase, the Fraud Report, published by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has said.
Total loss value recorded in 2022 stood at approximately GH¢56million as compared to approximately GH¢61million in 2021.
This shows a 7.88% decrease from 2021.
The major drivers (top five) fraud typologies that impacted most of the institutions in the sector included forgery and manipulation of documents, fraudulent withdrawals, cheque fraud, cyber/email and cash theft (cash suppression), the report said.
Forgery and manipulation of documents emerged as the prominent fraud typology. This type of fraud recorded the highest loss of GH¢33million.
Another fraud typology which was also on the increase is fraudulent withdrawal. This typology involved money fraudulently withdrawn from customers’ account resulting in losses totalling GH¢7million. Most of the cases recorded in this fraud type had the involvement of staff of banks and SDIs. Cheque fraud also accounted for a loss value of GH¢5million. The most common modus operandi in cheque fraud was cloned cheques.
While staff involvement in fraud persists, the numbers have started trending downwards as a result of strict sanctions imposed by Bank of Ghana and strong advocacy for improved controls by the sector institutions.
The fraud cases involving staff decreased to 188 in 2022, as compared to 278 in 2021. Most of the incidents recorded involving staff had to do with cash theft (cash suppression) from customers’ accounts and happened to be a very common fraud typology in the Rural and Community banking sector.
The report seeks to inform the general banking public of fraud trends. The report reflects trends in fraud typologies observed in relation to services provided by Banks, Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs), and measures Bank of Ghana is taking to address them and promote the integrity of the banking system.