How to identify, report financial sector fraud

In the past few years, incidents of fraud in Ghana’s financial sector have been on the increase.

In 2020, the value of fraud incidents, according to the Bank of Ghana’s report on fraud hit GH¢1 billion while that of attempted fraud in the financial sector for 2021 declined by 12.09 percent.

While this may come as good news to some, criminals have found new ways to engage in fraud-related incidents in the financial.

Taking his turn on GhanaWeb TV BizTech, Lead, Financial Crimes and AML at the e-Crime Bureau, Eric Kwaku Mensah, offers some education on how to identify and report these crimes to relevant authorities.

Mensah also urged consumers of digital and electronic platforms to remain circumspect when using the platforms. He also cautioned against ‘too good to be true schemes’ which often rip off consumers.

He, however, shared that real estate sector along with other sectors of the economy have gradually become a haven for criminals to engage in money laundering activities.

Meanwhile, the 2021 Banking, Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions and Electronic Money Issuers (EMI) fraud report said the year recorded a loss value of GH¢61million as compared to a loss of GH¢25 million in 2020, representing a 144.00% increase in year-on-year terms.

It outlined the significant fraud types that accounted for this figure including ATM card/POS fraud, impersonation, lending and credit fraud, forgery and manipulation of documents, cash suppression and E-money fraud.

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The increase, according to the financial sector regulator can be attributed to demand and use of electronic and digital platforms for transactions.