Moniepoint Microfinance Bank Managing Director, Mr. Babatunde Olofin, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday has called on Nigerians to avoid sharing their account numbers publicly as much as possible, especially during the festive season, to avoid falling victim to cyber fraud.
His emphasis was on the importance of cyber security awareness, warning that sharing account numbers publicly could lead to unwitting involvement in criminal activities and imprisonment.
He said in his own words, “My biggest advice is for people to stop sharing their account numbers in public. Some people are in prison because they had no idea what someone used their accounts for.”
In his explanation, he said “People don’t love you as much to be giving you giveaways. So, you should know that they are harvesting your details. Your bank account is a private detail.”
He affirmed that fraudsters often exploit public information to commit financial crimes, with unsuspecting individuals bearing the consequences reiterating the need for vigilance, noting that giveaways are often a guise to harvest personal details.
Babatunde detailed the common fraud tactics of attractive offers of free gifts and cash rewards to lure victims into sharing their bank details.
He said fraud schemes often involve victims making upfront payments, only to lose their money and sometimes their identities. According to Olofin, some fraud victims have unknowingly participated in crimes like money laundering because their accounts were used for illicit transactions, resulting in legal troubles for them.
“Fraudsters do a lot of things. They structure funds. They know how internal systems work,” he stated.
The Moniepoint boss also mentioned that in some cases, victims’ identities are stolen, and their accounts are misused for illicit activities such as money laundering, leading to legal complications.
Babatunde disclosed that Moniepoint’s collaboration with organizations such as the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is to enhance fraud detection and implement sophisticated security controls.
He also noted that the bank has built a transaction monitoring and anti-money laundering team with advanced internal rules to detect and prevent fraud.
“We’ve built up a transaction monitoring and money laundering team that has set rules internally,” he said.
He clearly pointed out that fraud cases in Nigerian banks have surged significantly, with a 65% increase reported by the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC). The number of fraud incidents rose from 11,532 in Q2 2024 to 19,007 in Q3 2024.
He further presented that the amount involved in fraud attempts has skyrocketed to N115.9 billion in Q3, marking a 105% jump from the N56.6 billion recorded in the previous quarter.
However, banks successfully minimized actual losses, with only N10.1 billion lost to fraud in Q3 2024. This represents a 75.4% decline compared to the N42.8 billion lost in Q2.
Despite this progress, Nigerian banks have cumulatively lost an estimated N53.4 billion to fraud in the first nine months of 2024, underscoring the growing threat of financial crimes and the need for heightened vigilance.