So many fraudsters becoming bankers – Bank of Ghana advises employers

The Bank of Ghana has advised financial institutions to do proper background checks before employing their workers in view of the rising fraud perpetrated by their own workers especially bankers.

“…When you are employing, you have to do Know Your Employee (KYE ). Know the person you are recruiting. Make sure you do a verification of their qualifications; check from the police Criminal Investigations Department about any criminal record…The Bank of Ghana also has a database of persons that may have caused certain fraud in banks — employers must crosscheck potential employees against this database to ensure criminals are not recycled,” Mr George Nkrumah, who heads the Financial Integrity Office of the Bank of Ghana advised at the start of a workshop put together by the central bank and the Committee for Cooperation between the Law enforcement and Banking Community (COCLAB).

Mr Nkrumah reminded banks to take employee background verification seriously so as to pre-empt the rising number of employee fraud among bankers.

His comment comes after commercial banks last year lost nearly GHc20 million to employee-related fraud.

According to the 2018 Bank of Ghana report, commercial banks lost about GHC 20 million to fraud carried out mainly by their own employees.

In per cent terms, employee fraud cases rose by 50% in 2018 with respect to 2017 with employee-related rising by 78%.

The bank of Ghana has therefore advised that Know Your Employee (KYE) be carried out thoroughly.