The Managing Director of Tripple Gee Ltd., Chief Gbade Giwa, has raised the alarm, saying that the level of electronic fraud and identity theft in Nigeria is assuming an alarming proportion in relation to the growth of the digital era.
Giwa’s Tripple Gee is a Central Bank of Nigeria’s security printing firm.
Giwa, explained that criminals often weigh their chances of success before embarking on criminal activities.
To discourage criminal attacks on the citizens, he insisted that efforts should be made on eliminating success rate of criminal activities relating to identity theft.
Giwa noted that security print industry in Nigeria is only appreciated by a few persons who know the importance of security and that perhaps, that is why some organisations do not appreciate the fact that even their letter-heads and invoices are prone to attack by fraudsters.
He lamented that the level of awareness can be better, if people can take the security printing industry very seriously.
He said, “We do not need to wait until there are problems, when your letter-heads have been forged and used to defraud your customers.”
Complementing him, a risk management analyst, Mr. Akintunde Olayemi, also said that the menace of electronic fraud in the payment system had been discovered to cost the country a whopping sum of N197.9 billion annually, adding that this affects almost all the key sectors, putting the whole economy at the risk of collapse, if nothing is done fast to checkmate the
tide.
He noted that hacking has become a real menace for banks as they have become targets both internally and externally, experiencing losses in billions of naira.
He lamented that customers are experiencing losses and inconveniences, after their banks become targets of
cyber frauds.
Olayemi said, “Some innovations and banking applications, particularly, those that have single interface that can be used across multiple banks, are said to be part of the solutions heightening e-fraud in the sector.”
