CBN orders Banks to Establish e-fraud Desk

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered deposit mon­ey banks, mobile money operators, switches and all payment service providers to establish electronic fraud desks as part of its effort to combat fraudulent activities in the banking industry.
The bnk’s Director, Bank­ing and Payments Systems Department, Dipo Fatokun, at the weekend, said the estab­lishment of the new industry desk followed submissions to the NeFF and consultation with the deposit money banks as well as electronic payments service providers.

The new desk, Fatokin said, would set up effective mechanisms for receiving and responding promptly to fraud alerts, to help manage and reduce electronic payments fraud in the banking industry.
In a memo to all DMBs, switches and payment service providers, the CBN gave all banks and e-payment plat­forms July 1 deadline to set up and staff a functioning Fraud Desk.
He noted that the staff of the desks must be trained on emerging fraud trends on various electronic payments channels, while stating that defaulting banks risk serious sanctions.
Meanwhile, speaking at the unveiling of the 2014 yearly report of the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF), with a call for sustained innovative efforts against cybercrime, the Director, Banking and Payment System, said it has become imperative that an ef­fective mechanism for receiv­ing and responding promptly to fraud alerts be set up within the banking industry, towards managing and reducing suc­cessful electronic payments frauds.
Fatokun said “the mobile money space started in Nige­ria just about four years ago in 2011, and currently we have li­censed about 21 mobile money operators.”
He noted that it is not right to say that “we are not making progress, but it will be right to say that our expectations on mobile money has not fully been met and probably be­cause we are a little bit ambi­tious in setting the targets.”
He added: “Each transac­tion in mobile money runs into billion, in fact, more than N5 billion every year, but what we have noticed is that most of the transactions in mobile money is either subscriptions, payment for subscriptions and remittances, maybe the mobile wallet sending money to ac­count in the bank or account in the bank sending money to mobile wallet,” he noted.
Also speaking at the event, the GMD /CEO of Diamond Bank, Uzoma Dozie, said cy­bercrime has become worri­some and dominating global financial discourse, as the per­petrators even get more sophis­ticated in approach.
For him, the underline ide­ology for cyber security is to provide relevant strategy and framework against cyber threat, as well as secure the business in the advent of attack and nurture the same cyber.
However, the circular stated that the desk would provide, among other services, support to customers on electronic fraud with a minimum of 10 dedicated phone lines, manned and available at all times, to handle calls directed from con­tact centre for fraud alerts and complaints.
The desk would also log on all customer fraud alerts and complaints and redirect them to the appropriate authorities in line with internally predefined path, while preparing and sub­mitting reports regularly to the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System (NIBSS) on fraud in­formation.
In addition, the desk would have the responsibility to sen­sitise customers on e-fraud and fraud desk services as well as manage/resolve all intra-bank issues by leveraging an enter­prise fraud management system.