The Bank of Ghana wants banks to give their fraud units direct and unrestricted access to their chief executives, as concern grows over the way lenders organize the fight against fraud.

Governor Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama told heads of banks in Accra on Tuesday that the central bank had received concerns from the Ghana Association of Banks (GAB) about the different placements of the fraud function across banks.

“Fraud is a significant risk that requires our serious attention,” he said at the post-Monetary Policy Committee engagement with bank chiefs. He said the fraud function “should be appropriately positioned, with direct and unrestricted access to the Managing Director or Chief Executive Officer, to ensure its independence and effectiveness," the Governor noted.

Banks must also ensure that staff responsible for the function have the requisite skills, professional certifications and technical competence, he added.

The intervention addresses a structural weakness that industry watchers have long flagged.

In some banks, fraud teams sit within operations or risk departments, several layers below the top. In others, they report into the same business units they are meant to police. That arrangement can delay escalation, blunt investigations and leave fraud officers exposed when cases involve senior staff.

The concern is not academic. Ghana’s banking sector recorded 16,733 fraud cases in 2024, a 5 per cent increase on the previous year, with a total value of about GH¢99 million, according to the Bank of Ghana’s 2024 Fraud Report and GAB’s industry data. The value of fraud has risen 214 per cent since 2020. Insider involvement has been a recurring problem.

Staff involvement in fraud rose 33 per cent in 2024, with three-quarters of those cases linked to cash suppression, where staff conceal or divert cash deposits received from customers. A year earlier, staff-related cases had risen 46 per cent, from 188 in 2022 to 274 in 2023.

Forgery and document manipulation was the largest single category in 2024 at GH¢53.54 million, while ATM and card fraud jumped 89 per cent.

Digital fraud has proved especially costly: in the final quarter of 2025, GAB found that cyber and email fraud carried a 100 per cent loss rate, meaning none of the money stolen in reported cases was recovered.

Giving fraud units a direct line to the chief executive is meant to ensure that suspicious activity reaches the top quickly, and that investigators cannot be overruled or sidelined by managers whose departments are under scrutiny.

The Governor did not say whether the Bank would issue a formal directive on the matter, but he urged banks to strengthen their fraud risk management through effective policies and controls to prevent, detect and deter fraud.

The fraud warning came alongside a broader regulatory agenda. Dr Asiama said the central bank would soon issue a Credit Risk Management Directive and a Liquidity Coverage Ratio Directive, the latter introducing the first prudential benchmark for banks’ liquidity.

He also said the Bank was paying increased attention to cyber, technology and fintech-related risks as digitalisation increases operational exposure across the sector.

The Bank has previously urged lenders to tighten recruitment screening and pursue the prosecution of staff involved in fraud.