Nigeria’s vice president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has explained that every year, the country loses around N 197 billion to fraud. He mentioned this when he was addressing a stakeholders forum on financial frauds through the use of telecoms platform. The event was organized by the Nigerian Communication Commission in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Prof. Osinabnjo who was represented by Barr. Bolaji Owoseye at the event explained that innovations going on in Nigeria’s Telecoms sector have caused some security breaches since fraudsters have also learned how to bypass whatever security steps that are in place.
He stated,‘‘The cost of financial services fraud to the country is a whopping 197bn annually. Fake mobile money has proliferated with cloning of banks with fraudsters to extract customers personal and financial information and other mischievous activities.
‘‘We can’t out of risk of fraudsters stop innovation. We must continue to innovate. There are elderly people who do not have ATM cards. They cannot associate with the risks associated with ATM cards. We must build confidence in the market to be able to bring in people who want to be within the platform.
‘‘One of the issues to resolve is who should have responsibility when fraud is committed. Sometimes you have four players: customers, bank, telecom, mobile service provider and nobody wants to take responsibility. Historical, innovations have always brought progress and development to mankind but in the wake has always come to the dark side.
‘‘The anticipation and unanticipated consequences of any invention are always available for evil-minded to exploit to the detriment of the society. Nigeria has like otherwise has inevitable embrace the digital world through the use of telecommunications.
‘‘However, the tread off for greater efficiency and versatility in this new world is the increased negative application of innovation for criminal disposition. Without telecommunication, the originator of fake news has no capacity to spread falsehood so rapidly to such a wide audience without being quickly nipped in the bud.
‘‘ But in today’s world, fake news excuses the world to great danger. Each sector of the economy and society is exposed in a different way to mouse of technology or any innovation.’’
Speaking on retail mobile payment businesses, Osinbajo explained, ‘‘They provide the opportunity for personal and business anywhere. They remain an economical means of achieving the financial conclusion. They are critical to bring ginger within the social safety net the most vulnerable members of the society.
‘‘All the vendors in the Home Grown School feeding programs are encouraged to register through digital platforms. The Conditional Cash Transfer, though it is done in the rural areas, is done in cash but once a social register is done, effort is being made for all beneficiaries to get their stipends via mobile platform. ‘‘We must never out of fear refuse to innovate and be ahead of the fraudsters in the market. Right now there is no law that regulates Digital Currency in Nigeria. Nigeria has no law but there are people that use cryptocurrency. They are not waiting for law. But yet, there will be problems and those problems have to be solved. We cannot refuse to create platforms to check fraudsters.’’
He progresses, ‘‘The issue of today, the vulnerability of the financial sector to negative use of the technology is timely because no one can dispute the relevance of telecom to improve financial services. Indeed, the use of telecom services have helped to reduce banks’ operating cost and customers’ satisfaction. Banks have obviously expanded their operational bases using these platform.
‘‘This proliferation of alternative banking channels through which banking transactions have performed. In this regard, the Nigerian banking industry has simply aligned itself with the global trend. However, it is this financial service delivery and opportunity for inclusion that is now threatened by fraud. Today, we are grabbing with new methods of fraud, such as Some card swaps, customer identity theft, bank or customer base hark, BVN snatching and compromise of customer systems etc. ”
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