ATM, POS and Card fraud cases jump from 9 to 218 in 2023 – BoG report

In 2023, banks reported a total count of 969 fraud cases, showing a 17% drop from the 1,163 cases in 2022, the Bank of Ghana has said in its fraud report on banks, SDIs and PSPs.

The fraud type that recorded a significant jump in cases was ATM/POS/Card fraud, which recorded 218 cases in 2023 compared to only 9 cases in 2022, the report noted.

It said the increased use of digital channels may have contributed to the rise in fraud emanating from ATM/POS/Card payment platforms.

The central bank has, thus, urged banks to enhance the security features of their electronic banking systems to make the systems difficult to access by these fraudsters.

Additionally, SIM swap fraud was identified as one of the emerging fraud types recorded by the banks in 2023, with 15 recorded cases for the year.

The total loss value to banks with respect to fraud cases recorded in 2023 was approximately GH¢63 million compared to GH¢52 million in 2022, showing an increase of 21%.

Cash Theft (Cash Suppression) recorded the highest fraud loss in 2023 with a value of GH¢14.8 million, a steep rise of 14 times over the GH¢1 million recorded in 2022.

The report noted that although cash suppression fraud has largely been associated with the rural banking sub-sector, but the few cases recorded in 2023 by universal banks involved huge amounts.

For instance, a cash theft of US$466,000.00 was recorded at a universal bank, which when converted to cedis led to a significant increase in loss value within the banking sector.

For fraud involving foreign currencies, the total loss value recorded in 2023 stood at US$1.7 million and GPB 0.048 million.

These fraudulent activities in foreign currencies had a huge impact on the total loss value in Ghana cedi terms, the central bank noted.