There has been a significant decline in the level of staff involvement in fraud committed at financial institutions, the 2022 Fraud Report, published by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has said.
This is largely due to constant improvement in the internal controls of Banks and Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs), the report said.
Another factor, according to the report, is the stiff punishment that has been meted out by the courts to the culprits which has served as a deterrent to others.
Banks and SDIs have also been admonished to undertake proper background checks of all prospective temporary and permanent employees.
The issue of cash theft (cash suppression) continues to be on the increase in the SDI sector. Most of the cases reported emanates from the rural and community banking sector.
Cash theft (cash suppression) recorded a loss of GH¢3.9 million in 2022. This is a 7.12% decrease from 2021. The count of cash theft (cash suppression) incidents went up in 2022, however, there was a decrease in the loss value recorded.
Mobile money fraud registered 12,166 cases in the year 2022, as against 12,350 cases recorded in 2021, indicating a marginal decrease.
Mobile money fraud has become very predominant, especially, to the vulnerable who mostly are unable to read.
The report said there is also a lack of attention to security by most people in using the mobile money application.
“Also a general lack of security awareness has largely contributed to victims easily falling prey to fraudsters. The Bank of Ghana has however engaged the financial entities to put in stringent measures to mitigate the impact of this fraudulent activity.
“Some users of mobile money do not periodically change their PIN making them easily prone to fraudsters. The aged and uneducated users of mobile money are not very conversant with the application,” it said.
They would usually handover the phone to other people to do transactions on their behalf. Their PINs are compromised since they have to give it out to a third party to do the transaction, it explained.
“There is the need to undertake major sensitization on some targeted customers of mobile money. The sensitization programmes should be in multiple local languages to enable the vulnerable, in particular, and the public in general to appreciate it,” the report recommended.