e-fraud greatest threat to digital finance, says NCC

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), yesterday, confirmed that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had identified e-fraud as the greatest threat to digital finance.

Speaking at the secondary school debate organised by the commission in Abuja, Director, Consumer Affairs Bureau, Efosa Idehen, lamented that a huge sum of money was being lost to the menace in the nation’s financial sector.

He observed that as technology evolves, “there is a growing concern over the rising trend at which fraud is perpetrated on telecoms platforms across key sectors of the Nigerian economy.”

His words: “The CBN rates e-fraud as the biggest risk in the sector, which has widely affected electronic payment solutions such as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBBS) instant payment and mobile banking. Attackers are now targeting telecoms networks to disrupt service delivery and infiltrate their data bank in addition to SIM swaps, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and e-payment fraud.”

According to him, the NCC in a bid to address the situation actively collaborates with critical stakeholders such as the apex bank, Nigeria Police (NPF), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in the fight against e-banking fraudsters.

The Country Director of Save the Consumer, Aliyu Ilias, said his organisation had enjoyed six years partnership with the NCC.

“Save the Consumer will continue to work with the commission to save the consumer. For the past six years that we have been in this partnership, the relationship has been very cordial,” he clarified.