About GH 56 million was lost by the banking industry and SDIs in Ghana in 2022, down from a loss of GH 61 million in 2021 (a decrease of 7.88 percent).
However, in 2022 there were 2,998 cases of attempted fraud in the banking and SDI industries, a 27.74 percent rise from 2021’s 2,347 occurrences.
This information was made public in the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) 2022 trends and statistics report on bank, SDI, and PSP fraud, which covered the period from January 1 to December 31 of that year.
It was found that the top five fraud typologies affecting most financial institutions were document forgery and manipulation, fraudulent withdrawals, check fraud, cyber/email fraud, and cash theft (cash suppression).
The largest loss, GH33 million, was attributable to forgery and manipulation of papers, which also emerged as the most common type of fraud.
The Central Bank of Ghana estimated that GH7 million was lost due to unauthorized withdrawals from customer accounts by bank and SDI employees, while GH5 million was lost due to check fraud caused by duplicated checks.
According to the data, there were 188 occurrences of employee fraud in 2022, down from 278 the year before.
In the report, it was said that “most of the incidents recorded involving staff had to do with cash theft (cash suppression) from customers’ accounts,” which is “a very common fraud typology in the rural and community banking sectors.”
“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 said.
Banks in Ghana have been urged by the central bank to inform the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Association of Banks of any instances of fraud that have occurred at their institutions so that others may learn from the methods used to prevent such incidents in the future.
Financial institutions have been tasked with enhancing customer awareness of fraud and conducting regular reviews of the adequacy and operational effectiveness of their risk management (credit risk) and internal control frameworks in order to identify instances of fraud and other financial crimes.
Banks and SDIs were also urged by the Central Bank to notify the Ghana Police Service of any instances of financial crime, such as cash theft (cash suppression), and to keep the Bank of Ghana apprised of developments until the matter was resolved.
The Bank of Ghana has released a report on recent fraud tendencies in the banking industry.
The study highlights trends in fraud typologies found in relation to services offered by banks, SDIs, and PSPs, as well as measures taken by the Bank of Ghana to address these trends and improve banking system integrity.
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