Banks in Ghana lose GH¢19.1mn to theft committed by own employees according to BoG report

September 2, 2019 10:47 AM

A report from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has disclosed that there is a growing number of employees of banks either stealing from customers or their employers.

The Bank of Ghana

The report which was prepared by the Financial Stability Department of the Bank of Ghana indicated that in 2018, more than 2,170 cases of fraud were reported. Out of the number, 1,239 cases were committed by banks’ staff in the form of suppressing cash or deposits from customers.

The report showed that the figures of employees fraud show a 78% increase in the 697 cases reported a year earlier.

The BoG report said “It is important to stress that about 99 percent of the fraud cases reported as suppression of cash and deposits were perpetrated by staff (either contract or permanent) of the financial institutions.

The alarming involvement of staff in the perpetration of fraud in the banking sector calls for significant reforms in the recruitment, remuneration, and disengagement of persons that are engaged by financial institutions.”

According to the Financial Stability Report, the involvement of the employees of these financial institutions led to the loss of about GHC19.1 million in the year under review.

In all the Financial institutions lost GHC44.4 million to all forms of fraud in 2018 while employees related fraud accounted for 42% of the total losses.