Bank of Ghana urges banks to verify the background of employees to curb rising fraud

According to the Head of the Financial Integrity Office at the Bank of Ghana, George Nkrumah this will reduce fraud by workers of banks.

“When you are employing, you have to do Know Your Employee. Know the person you are recruiting. Make sure you do a verification of their qualifications; check from the police Criminal Investigations Department about any criminal record.”

“The Bank of Ghana also has a database of persons that may have caused certain fraud in banks — employers must crosscheck potential employees against this database to ensure criminals are not recycled,” he added.

His comment comes after banks in Ghana lost almost GHC20 million to employee-related fraud. This is according to the 2018 BoG’s report on fraud in the banking sector.

Mr Nkrumah said banks must take the background search of their employees serious.

“The point is, as we put measures in place, they come up with new methodologies,” he said.

He said this at a 3-day Committee for Cooperation between the Law enforcement and Banking Community (COCLAB) workshop which is being attended by bankers, personnel from the security agencies, justices, as well as key staff of the mobile network operators.

Increasing cases of bank fraud

In 2018, fraud cases reported by commercial banks in the country increased by 50% from the figure recorded in 2017.

The BoG report indicated that a total of 2,175 fraud cases as compared to 1,418 fraud cases were reported in, 2017.

The report prepared by the Financial Stability Department of the central bank stated that, out of the more than 2,170 cases of fraud reported, 1,239 cases were committed by banks’ staff in the form of suppressing cash or deposits from customers.