Going forward, there would be no hiding place for electronic fraudsters as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Bankers’ Committee have resolved to create a central depository database to checkmate suspected cases.
Briefing journalists after the Bankers’ Committee meeting in Lagos, Herbert Wigwe, CEO, Access Bank plc, said the move would ensure strong deterrent to fraudulent activities in the banking system.
If this is implemented, the level of fraud through SMS and other channels would be reduced and offenders taken out of banking system so that the system would be sanitised, Wigwe said.
Cases of fraud and forgeries increased to 9,929 at end-December 2016 from 9,164 reported at end-June 2016, according to the financial system stability report of the CBN.
The total amount involved in the cases, however, reduced from N4.36 billion at end-June 2016 to N4.12 billion at end-December 2016. Similarly, actual losses reduced to N1.003 billion at end-December 2016, from N1.38 billion at end-June 2016.
Returns from banks showed that majority of frauds and forgeries were perpetrated by outsiders. The frauds were committed mainly through suppression and conversion of customers’ deposits, illegal fund transfers, pilfering and ATM withdrawals.
The Committee observed that recent developments in the foreign exchange had led to reduction in cost of dollar and the exchange rates nearing convergence. They noted that the foreign exchange measure of the CBN had also led to inflation trending down.
Inflation rate dropped to 17.26 percent in March from 17.78 percent recorded in February, following stability in food prices and impact of recent appreciation of naira.
The CBN recently opened several forex windows to ease pressure, improved liquidity and to close the gap between the official market and the unofficial market. The Committee also noted that the forex window for investors and export would allow investors come in and bring their investment in the country.
Other members of the committee that addressed the media included Ahmed Abdullahi, director, banking supervision department, CBN, Michael Larbie, managing director/CEO, Rand Merchant Bank, Charles Kie, managing director/CEO, Ecobank plc, and Isaac Okorafor, acting director, corporate communications, CBN.
Abdullahi emphasised that banks were committed to implementing the initiative of financing agriculture sector with 5 percent of their profit after tax, adding that this would help fast track the economy out of recession.
The Committee also said the banks were committed to ensuring forex availability to small and medium enterprises for import of eligible goods and travel, adding that banks were expected to have necessary travel desk.
It emphasised the need for all to support the economy get out of recession as all policy measures tend towards ensuring sustainability.
Okorafor said: “We have also significantly ease the problems of manufacturers, SMEs in the forex market, there is better supply now, so we have been able to ease off these problems and demand for foreign exchange.
“More importantly I believe production has greatly improved, it is impacting on the prices, farmers are going back to their farms – in fact a good number of our people are withdrawing from the urban area to the rural areas, encouraged especially by the CBN anchor’s borrowers program and some other programmes that are going on, farmers are taking loans and so the cognitive actions of all these factors no doubt tend to regenerate and then better developments.
“So, we can see that inflation rate has gone down, that is very good and those are some of the early sign of some of these measures, and so we believe to some degree that the economy is on its way out of recession.”
