Some N15.9 billion was stolen from Nigerian banks in 133 raids and 171 attacks on cash in-transit vehicles last year pointing to growing activities of the lethal band of thieves exploiting lapses in the system and poor law enforcement, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
Bank robberies have assumed a national problem from the reported 15 cases in Lagos in the year 2000, requiring concerted campaign to fight the country’s growing plague.
A special study by Integrated Cash Management Services (ICMS) suggested that the present crime prevention and fighting mechanism is faulty and may do little to deter the daring and mindless robbers who also leave blood and tears in their wake.
The current measures include the use of CCTV images live in banks by the police to capture a few of the armed gang members as well as armoured cash-in-transit (CIT) vehicles.
Stephan Botha, chief executive officer, ICMS said the country required more than that and called for the establishment of an integrated cash supply chain for the banking industry to manage cost and risk.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that this needs a comprehensive multi-bank end-to-end industry approach to proactively manage risk by setting minimum standards for the total cash industry, with integrated software and technology to manage and support the processes.
By combining forces, the banks and government could combine intelligence, analyse trends and agree on combined action. All banks should participate in the partnership on an equal basis, and the Central Bank’s participation would be essential.
The partnership should focus on establishing a low-risk environment by moving cash out of bank branches to multi-bank cash centres designed to manage bulk cash, thus reducing the risk of attacks on bank branches.
The cash centres would be high-security buildings built to international standards for the holding and sorting of cash and onward transfer. Through economies of scale, high standards of security can be established while at the same time driving down costs for individual banks.
By working together in this partnership, the banking industry can move from its current reactive approach to robberies to being far more proactive, with an independent secretariat acting as honest broker to centralize information, manage shared control rooms, integrate software and systems across the banks, establish a non-competitive centralized intelligence capability, with a database to collate and share information, analyse and develop proactive strategies.
“With foreknowledge, we can move from reactive to proactive mode, develop counter-strategies based on intelligence reports and mount joint operations to keep the upper hand,” said Botha.
