Step Up Efforts to Combat Financial Crime – BoG to Banks

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has charged Commercial Banks in the country to step up their efforts in combating financial crime.

The Central Bank in 2016 received reports of a total of 1,001 fraud cases from universal banks, non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) and rural and community banks (RCBs).

The cases, captured in the BOG’s Payment Systems Oversight Report, included the suppression of customer accounts by staff of financial institutions, card fraud, forgery and alteration of documents, manipulation of accounts and negotiable instruments.

Others were the fraudulent collection of international remittances by persons not named as recipients, transactions involving cloned and stolen cheques and fraudulent transfers through hacked email accounts.

The monetary value involved in the cases (both successful and attempted) was about GH¢244.32 million.

Speaking to Starr Business at the maiden training on Financial Crime Prevention organised by the Ghana International Bank in Accra, first Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Maxwell Afari said despite moves to introduce new cyber regulations, Banks must also strengthen their systems to help reduce the menace.

“Our Payment System Department at the Bank of Ghana is regularly engaging Banks and Telcos that are operating E-payments and Mobile Money Transactions to try to work within the agreed guidelines and framework to ensure that even as we use this platform in this ecosystem to drive financial inclusion, we will also have the protection of the staff and the financial systems in mind, so that whatever we do it is geared towards protecting this and engaging in ways as to not to open this ecosystem up to fraud and crime,” he stated.