Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria recorded a total loss of N468.42 million dues to fraudulent activities in the first quarter of 2024, according to Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC).

The reported represented a decrease of 77.62 per cent over the N2.09bn lost in the fourth quarter of 2023 according to FITC Report on Fraud and Forgeries in Nigerian Banks for Q1 2024 released on Monday.

FITC was established in 1981 as a not for profit special purpose professional services organization that is limited by guarantee of its members, who are also members of Nigerian Bankers’ Committee, as comprised of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, all licensed Banks and Discount Houses in Nigeria.

The institution also noted that number of cases reported by the DMBs in Nigeria dropped by 7.5 per cent compared to the 12,405 cases reported in the fourth quarter of 2023.

“Nigerian banks lost N468.42m in the first quarter, a substantial decline from the N2.09bn loss they recorded in Q4, 2023

“For Q1 2024, a total of 11,472 cases were reported, and when compared to the 12,405 cases recorded in the Q4 2023, a 7.52 per cent decrease is noted” the report read.

Revealing channels where the criminal activities were perpetrated, the institution cited computer/ web fraud, mobile fraud, and Point of Sale (POS) as the top three prevalent forms of fraudulent activity.

This, it added, is consistent with the trend observed in the previous quarter.

According to the FITC report, mobile fraud accounted for 46.29 per cent of the total losses recorded by the banks valued at N216.83m, while computer/web fraud entries accounted for 17 per cent.

“During Q1 2024, fraudulent activities were conducted through various channels, which included ATMs, online platforms such as web and mobile banking, bank branches, and point-of-sale (POS) terminals.

“In the first quarter of 2024, cards were the only instrument for fraud that recorded an increase, while the use of cheques and cash recorded relatively lower fraudulent activities when compared to the previous quarter.

“Specifically, there was a 31.12 per cent rise in fraud cases through the POS Channel, rising from 2,683 cases in Q4 2023 to 3,518 cases in QI 2024” FITC stated in the report.

The institution urged commercial banks across the country to be more vigilant, while noting that banks need to ensure advanced fraud detection technologies.

In addition, FITC urged DMBs to employ the services of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics Process Automation, Advanced Analytics, and Predictive Modelling to arrest the situation.

OPay, Chinese-backed fintech giant has received approval from a Federal High Court in Lagos to freeze customer bank accounts in thirty listed banks as part of a process to recover ₦714 million received by customers during a system glitch.

A TechCabal exclusive has that the system glitch occurred from December 10, 2023, to March 4, 2024, and allowed customers to receive value for unsuccessful transactions.

OPay contacted customers who received value for sums above ₦500,000 via emails and phone calls and asked them to fund their accounts so the retained funds could be debited immediately after it became aware of the issue.

The fintech recovered 10% of the total amount from those customers.

“While some customers responded positively to the Applicant’s request and cooperated with the Applicant in respect of the recovery of the Erroneosly Retained Credits, some customers have refused, failed, and/or neglected to fund their accounts to enable the Applicant to deduct the value of the Erroneously Retained Credits from their respective accounts,” the company said in a court filing.

The fintech asked the court to freeze the customer accounts and filed an affidavit of urgency alongside its application. The orders were granted by the court on June 28, 2024, and OPay will now begin asking thirty banks to restrict the affected customer accounts.

OPay declined to respond to comments.

OPay customers received value for pending transactions

Financial institutions use bank response codes to categorise successful, pending, or failed transactions. For OPay, ‘RC 09’ is the code for a pending transaction for which the company does not debit its customer.

However, from December 10, several cardholders made payments for pending transactions without getting debited.

“The Switching Company (Interswitch) that facilitated the said card transactions between the Applicant and its cardholders during this period inadvertently settled all the RC 09 transactions as successful,” OPay said in its filing.

Cryptocurrency traders worldwide lost $1.4 billion to hackers in the first half of this year, according to analysts at TRM Labs, cryptocurrency analytics company.

According to the report, the total amount of money that hackers took from January to June 2024 more than doubled that of the previous year over the same time period. In the first half of 2023, the value of stolen cryptos stood at $657 million.

TRM Labs further disclosed that similar to 2023, a small number of large attacks made up the lion’s share of the haul in 2024 as the top five hacks and exploits accounted for 70 per cent of the total amount stolen so far this year.

It added that private key and seed phrase compromises remain a top attack vector in 2024, alongside smart contract exploits and flash loan attacks.

The greatest attack to date, according to the research, occurred in 2024 on the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin; the theft resulted in the theft of over 4,500 BTC, valued at over USD 300 million at the time.

“While the exact cause of the attack remains unknown, potential vectors include stolen private keys or address poisoning—a tactic wherein attackers send tiny amounts of cryptocurrency to a victim’s wallet to create fake transaction histories, potentially confusing users into sending funds to the wrong address in future transactions,” TRM Labs stated.

The researchers added that more money was stolen during each of the first six months of 2024 than in the corresponding months in 2023, with the median hack 150% larger.

However, thefts from hacks and exploits are a third below the same period in 2022, which remains a record year.

To date, TRM has observed no fundamental changes in the security of the cryptocurrency ecosystem that may explain this upward trend; nor have we found significant differences in attack vectors or the number of attacks between the first halves of 2023 and 2024.

“However, the past six months did see significantly higher average token prices compared to this period last year; this is likely to have contributed to the increased theft volumes,” the researchers said.