The number of fraud threats recorded by Standard Chartered Bank Kenya last year almost doubled, amid a rise in cyber-attacks in the banking industry.
In its 2021 Sustainability Impact Report, the lender recorded 2,027 fraud threats, out of this, 1,822 were card frauds. None of this was instigated internally.
This is a jump from 1,018 in 2020, where four of them were carried out by the bank’s staff.
High technology advances have seen a rise in the level of sophistication used by criminals to commit financial fraud and cybercrimes in the past years, threatening the loss of billions in shillings to banks and businesses, and forcing them to be vigilant.
“The top fraud threats identified over the past year include card fraud, and payment fraud through social engineering schemes such as phishing and vishing. More than 90 percent of the card frauds fell under the “cards not present” typology (which occurs without the use of the physical card) and were recoverable through chargebacks,” the report stated.
The bank also laid off four employees last year as it stepped up its efforts to reduce fraud-related cases carried out by its staff.
The number of employees terminated dropped from five in 2020 at a time when most organisations adopted hybrid working modules as well as e-commerce tools due to Covid-19 lockdown measures.
“We remain diligent about the threat of internal fraud, and our trend analysis has shown a strong correlation between internal fraud and the current increase in external fraud incidents. We remain committed to clamping down on internal fraud and rely on our disciplinary process for staff who are found to be complicit,” it added.
