A Chartered Banker, Mr Patrick Abankwa has noted that statistics on banks fraud in Ghana is high, a situation that does not speak well about the industry.

He has therefore called for all bank workers to be subjected to the ethics of the profession, such that, if they are sanctioned for such offences they cannot move from one bank to another.

He wants such staff banned entirely from the industry.

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has announced that 56.% of fraud incidents reported in 2020 indicated the involvement of staff members of the reporting institutions, as compared to 51% of staff involvement reported in 2019.

This may be a consequence of the absence of corporate governance structures in some sections of the banking sector, resulting in the lack of accountability and transparency in their activities, the centrall bank said.

It added suppression of Deposits accounted for 73.3% of all fraud incidents reported in 2020 and 76.8% of all fraud incidents reported in 2019.

Suppression recorded the highest rate of staff involvement. 78.6% of all cash suppression cases reported in 2020, indicated the involvement of staff.

The Bank of Ghana recorded a total of 2,608 incidents of fraud as compared to 2,311 fraud cases reported in 2019, representing a year-on-year increase of 12.9%.

Banks and Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions regulated by the Bank of Ghana are required to submit fraud returns as and when they record incidents of fraud and also, a “Nil Report” if they do not record any incident at the end of a particular month.

2020 recorded a total of 2,670 fraud reports, as compared to 2,311 fraud reports filed in 2019, representing a year-on-year increase of 15.5% in the number of fraud returns submitted to the Bank. Quite a few fraud types recorded increases in 2020.

The most significant fraud types recorded in 2020, with respect to incidence and/or loss to the banking sector are: Fraudulent withdrawals; E-Money Fraud; ATM/POS Fraud

Fraudulent Withdrawals recorded the highest rate of increase in the year under review. Fraudulent Withdrawals increased from 16 cases in 2019 to 177 cases in 2020 representing an increment of 1,006.3%. E-Money Fraud also recorded 64 cases in 2020, as compared to 14 cases recorded in 2019, representing an increase of 357.1% in year-on-year terms. ATM/POS Fraud recorded 168 cases in 2020, as compared to 110 cases recorded in 2019, representing a 52.7% increase in year-on-year terms.

Speaking on thus development in interview with TV3, Mr Patrick Abankwa said “What banks should do as a form of training is that staff go through the recently launched Ghana banks’ code of ethics such that when a staff is punished the staff does not only move from one to bank another bank but the person is banned from the whole industry.”

He further noted that the rise in the fraud cases “raises a lot of question that is quite a huge jump.”