Nigerian Bank Falls Victim As ‘Yahoo Boys’ Remove Over N6bn From Account, Share the Funds
- Hope PSB is reportedly seeking to retrieve over N6 billion fraudulently removed from its account
- A report says that the money was transferred out of its platform by yet-be-identified cybercriminals
- NIBSS report showed that financial institutions lost over N3 billion to fraud in the first three months of 2024
Legit.ng journalist Dave Ibemere has over a decade of business journalism experience with in-depth knowledge of the Nigerian economy, stocks, and general market trends.
Hope Payment Service Bank has reportedly recorded a significant breach, with N6.5 billion fraudulently obtained from its banking platform in a cyber attack.
Source: Getty Images
TechCabal reports that the funds were transferred to hundreds of accounts in commercial banks and neobanks.
Hope PSB has already begun a legal process to recover the stolen funds from unknown persons.
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The report quoted an excerpt from a motion the company filed at a high court in Lagos:
“On about July 15, 2024, there was unauthorised access to the Plaintiff’s banking platform, following which huge sums of money were transferred fraudulently from the plaintiff’s banking platform to certain beneficiaries’ accounts."
Fraud in the banking industry
The rise in digital payments among Nigerians has made financial institutions a target of sophisticated internet fraudsters, popularly known as Yahoo Boys.
According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System's recent 'Annual Fraud Landscape' report, Nigeria's bank customers lost N59.33 billion between 2019 and 2023, with losses increasing from N2.96 billion in 2019 to N17.67 billion in 2023.
In the first quarter of 2024, financial institutions lost N3.007 billion to fraud
NIBSS said:
“The amount lost to fraud has increased over the past five years along with the growth of financial transactions in the digital payments sector."
Hope PSB speaks on attack
Reacting, Hope PSB said the attack was averted, and funds have been retrieved.
A reaction, which appeared as a report shared on Nairametrics, indicated that the attack did indeed occur, but according to the bank, it was truncated.
The report also noted that customers' funds were not affected, and transactions on its platform remained secure.
It added that the attack has been reported to the appropriate regulatory bodies for legal action.
Banks sack 93 workers over N10.7 billion insider fraud
Legit.ng reported that Nigerian banks dismissed about 93 employees for fraud-related cases last year.
Fraud losses of about N10.7 billion were reported in the Nigerian banking industry between 2023 and 2024.
Data from the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) disclosed that Nigerian banks recorded about 318 cases of staff collusion in fraud during the period under review.
Proofreading by Nkem Ikeke, journalist and copy editor at Legit.ng.
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Source: Legit.ng
