A report by financial institution, FITC, has revealed that N1.17 billion was lost to frauds across 24 banks in Nigeria in the second quarter of 2022, as more bank workers in Nigeria are taking advantage of their access to defraud customers.
The report, which gave insights into fraudulent activities in Nigerian banks between April and June 2022, revealed that 19 employees of banks were sacked within the review period due to their involvement in fraudulent activities, representing a 90 per cent increase compared to 10 recorded in Q1 2022.
The data also showed that compared to the same quarter in 2021, there is an increase of 375 per cent, as only 4 dismissals for fraud were recorded in Q2 2021.
The report also showed that with a total of N1.17 billion lost to frauds across 24 banks in Nigeria in the second quarter of 2022, 73 bank staff were reported to have been involved in the activities, a 27.6 per cent increase when compared with 60 recorded in the first quarter of the year.
The financial organisation advised banks to put adequate measures in place to deter their staff from engaging in fraud.
“Given the growing number of employees involved in fraudulent activities, banks should exercise extra caution when employing new staff or contracting an outsourcing firm for employment.
“As a measure to curb the involvement of staff in fraudulent activities, staff who have also acted with high integrity in circumstances in which they would have acted otherwise should be duly commended and rewarded for their actions; this sends a positive message to other staff and they too would want to be recognised and rewarded as well,” FITC stated.
