Bank customers lose N472m to fraudsters in three months –Report

• FITC quarterly reports
• Nigeria bank customers

In Nigeria, bank customers lost N472 million to fraud in the first quarter of 2023, according to a FITC analysis.

It was also revealed that a total of 12,553 incidences of fraud were documented over this time period.

This was according to the Q1 report received by journalists from the FITC website.

The Nigerian Banker’s Committee, which includes the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, and all licenced banks in Nigeria, includes FITC institutional members.

However, the data revealed a decrease in losses as compared to what was lost due to fraudulent financial operations in Q4, 2022.

According to FITC, a total of N3.18 billion was lost to fraudsters across financial systems in Q4 2022, representing an 85.13 percent decrease in losses in Q1 2023.

The FITC data also revealed that there was a 79.44 per cent decrease in the total amount involved in fraud cases in Q1 2023 compared to the previous quarter, with a decrease from N12.58bn to N2.59bn.

The total number of fraud cases reported in Q1, 2023 also declined by 14.07 per cent.

According to the report, a total of 12,553 cases were reported in the first quarter of this year compared with 14,609 cases recorded in the preceding quarter.

It was also noted that fraud occurred mostly through mobile, computer/web, and PoS, which was consistent with the trend from the previous quarter.

The report read, “For Q1 2023 under review, an analysis of the magnitude-based ranking of fraud categories shows that mobile fraud has the highest ranking which accounts for N1.1bn (42.72 per cent), and this is followed by the computer/web fraud category at N646m (24.99 per cent). This was followed by PoS fraud at N450m (17.41 per cent) and fraudulent withdrawals at N139m (5.36 per cent).”

From the total amount lost in Q1, 2023, the data also revealed that mobile fraud accounted for 34.07 per cent at N161m followed by computer/web fraud accounting for 27.69 per cent at N130m and fraudulent withdrawals representing 24.72 per cent at N116m.