Bank customers in Nigeria lost a whopping N472 million to fraud in the first three months of 2023.
This is according to the Q1 report by FITC, which also disclosed that there was a total of 12,553 cases of fraud recorded within the review period.
The report further showed that fraud occurred mostly through mobile, computer/web, and PoS, which was consistent with the trend from the previous quarter.
Compared to the fraudulent banking activities recorded in the last quarter of 2022, the data showed that there was a decline.
A total of N3.18 billion was lost to fraudsters across banking platforms in Q4 2022, according to the report.
This shows a decline of 85.13 per cent in Q1 2023.
The FITC data further showed 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 N12.58 billion to N2.59 billion.
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 2023 compared with 14,609 cases recorded in the last quarter of 2022.
“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),” the report read in part.
From the total amount lost in Q1, 2023, the data also revealed that mobile fraud accounted for 34.07 per cent at N161 million followed by computer/web fraud accounting for 27.69 per cent at N130 million and fraudulent withdrawals representing 24.72 per cent at N116 million.
