Financial sector fraud declines to GH¢56m in 2022

Ghana’s banking sector and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDI) lost approximately, GH¢56 million in 2022, representing a 7.88 per cent reduction compared to the GH¢61m recorded in 2021.

However, the number of attempted fraud cases for the banking and SDI sectors in 2022 increased to 2,998, as compared to 2,347 cases in 2021, which is a 27.74 per cent increase.

This was the disclosure made in the 2022 trends and statistics of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), SDIs and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) fraud report, covering January 1 to December 31, 2022.

It was observed that forgery and manipulation of

documents, fraudulent withdrawals, cheque fraud, cyber/email and cash theft (cash suppression), were the major drivers (top five) fraud typologies that impacted most of the financial institutions.

Forgery and manipulation of documents emerged as the prominent fraud typology, recording the highest loss of GHS33 million.

Money fraudulently withdrawn from customers’ accounts resulted in GHS7 million losses, most of which the Central Bank observed involved staff of banks and SDIs, while cheque fraud, arising from cloned cheques accounted for a loss value of GHS5 million.

The report indicated that the fraud cases involving staff decreased to 188 in 2022, as compared to 278 in 2021.

“Most of the incidents recorded involving staff had to do with cash theft (cash suppression) from customers’ accounts and happened to be a very common fraud typology in the Rural and Community banking sector,” the report said.

“While staff involvement in fraud persists, the numbers have started trending downwards as a result of strict sanctions imposed by the Bank of Ghana and strong advocacy for improved controls by the sector institutions,” the report stated.

To address the rise in fraudulent cases and losses recorded among Banks and SDI, BoG directed that Banks should immediately communicate fraud cases in their institutions to the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Association of Banks to alert all others on the approaches deployed to avoid recurrence.

Banks and SDIs were also directed to increase the level of fraud sensitisation to their customers and constantly review the adequacy and operating effectiveness of their risk management (credit risk) and internal control frameworks to detect fraud and other financial crimes within their institutions.

Also, the central bank asked Banks and SDIs to report financial crime including all cash theft (cash suppression) cases to the Ghana Police

Service and update the Bank of Ghana until the case is closed.

The fraud report, published by the Bank of Ghana seeks to inform the general banking public of fraud trends.

The report reflects trends in fraud typologies observed in relation to services provided by Banks, Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs), and measures the Bank of Ghana is taking to address them and promote the integrity of the banking system.