In Nigeria, bank customers lost N472 million to fraud in the first quarter of 2023, according to a FITC report.
The total number of fraud cases that were reported during this time was revealed to be 12,553.
According to the Q1 report that The PUNCH downloaded from the FITC website, this is the case.
The Nigerian Banker’s Committee, which includes the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, and all licenced banks in Nigeria, includes the institutional members of FITC.
However, the data revealed a decrease in losses when compared to what was lost to fraudulent banking activities in Q4, 2022.
According to FITC, fraudsters stole a total of N3.18 billion from banking platforms in Q4 2022; this meant that losses dropped by 85.13 percent in Q1 2023.
The FITC data also showed that, when compared to the prior quarter, the total amount involved in fraud cases in Q1 2023 decreased by 79.44 percent, from N12.58 billion to N2.59 billion.
Additionally, a 14.07% decrease in the overall number of fraud cases reported in Q1 2023.
A total of 12,553 cases were reported in the first quarter of this year, down from 14,609 cases in the same period last year, according to the report.
In accordance with the pattern from the previous quarter, it was also noted that the main fraud channels were mobile, computer/web, and point of sale.
According to the report, “For Q1 2023 under review, an analysis of the magnitude-based ranking of fraud categories shows that mobile fraud has the highest ranking, accounting for N1.1 billion (42.72%), and is followed by the computer/web fraud category at N646 million (24.99%). Following this, there were fraudulent withdrawals totaling N139m (5.36%) and PoS fraud totaling N450m (17.41%).
The data also showed that, of the total amount lost in Q1, 2023, mobile fraud accounted for 34.07 percent at N161 million, followed by computer/web fraud at N130 million and fraudulent withdrawals at N116 million.
