The Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Access Bank Plc, Mr. Herbert Wigwe, says the financial sector is losing a huge chunk of its revenue to frauds.
He also said frauds and anti-money laundering activities had reduced the amount of Foreign Direct Investment coming into the country.
Wigwe spoke at a stakeholders’ forum marking the bank’s anti-fraud and compliance awareness week.
He said, “Fraud and money laundering have had adverse impacts on our national development and particularly on the financial system. They have caused reputational damage to the image of the country, loss of foreign direct investment, poor infrastructural development, dwindling confidence and distortions in our political as well as financial systems, among other things.
According to the Access Bank boss, banking and financial services play a vital role in the country, pointing out that the sector “generates growth, create investment opportunities, facilitate the creation of jobs and generally drive our economy.”
However, he said the banking sector “can serve as fraud and money laundering channel, particularly when the transactions are complex; currency flow through our financial system is enormous, that even a small fraudulent adjustment of a rate or a fee can result in billion of naira being illegally diverted.”
The GMD observed that some global financial institutions had been penalised for failure to adhere to regulatory guidelines and non-compliance with standards as set by regulators.
“Fraud, a global epidemic ravaging major banks internationally and locally must also be wiped out completely. We must all work together to develop effective compliance and anti-fraud policies satisfactory to regulators, which are absolutely necessary in order for banks to handle effectively the complexity of current financial transactions, regulatory framework, preventively manage compliance and fraud risk, and of course, handle effectively incidents of compliance failures and fraud cases.”
To tackle the menace, Wigwe said the banking sector needed to put in place an effective internal control mechanism to curtail the menace of e-fraud and also sharing of information by stakeholders during fraud investigation.
He said there was need for collaboration with international and local agencies to develop strategic responses to prevention, information sharing’ and conducting of fraud awareness, training, among others.
Punch
