The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has assured customers of banks who may or have lost their monies through fraud of a refund.

Speaking on the Super Morning Show, the Head of Financial Stability at the Bank stated that the refund will be made after investigations are conducted, and evidence adduced suggests that the loss is not due to the customer's negligence.

"Whatever the case, an investigation must be conducted, and if it turns out that you indeed lost your money and it wasn't due to your negligence, but it was a bank staff that stole the money, it will be handed to you by the bank," he said.

He was speaking on the back of the release of a new report by the central bank on fraudulent activities in the banking sector.

The report indicated that actual losses incurred due to fraud for 2020 stood at ¢25.4 million. It also revealed that more than half of incidents of criminal activity in 2020 were carried out with the help of staff, with a total value of reported cases hitting ¢1bn for the first time.

However, cyber and e-mail fraud took a nosedive, with cyber/e-mail fraud accounting for 1.05% of the total number of fraud cases recorded in 2020, compared to a loss value of ¢14.3 million recorded in 2019.

Despite the decline in some of the figures, Dr France urged customers not to throw caution to the wind about ensuring their personal security is not compromised.

He stated that for reasons such as trust, people let down their guards by disclosing their PINs to parties other than themselves and their banks which often lead to fraud cases.

He contends that once the PINs are comprised, there's a high tendency for the third party to take advantage of the customer.

Also, "if you're shopping online and you give out the Card Verification Value to anybody or an insecure site, one can take advantage of you."

Safeguarding against fraudulent activities

On the aforementioned grounds, Dr France warned against giving out pin codes of credit cards and other sensitive accounts details to third parties.

"You have to guard against some of these things and take custody of your personal security. If you disclose your pin to a third party, you've broken that relationship, and that 3rd party can take advantage of you.

As an alternate, the Chief Executive Officer at Ghana Association of Bankers, who also spoke on the show, entreated customers to resort to prepaid cards for online transactions.

"Once the card is used on a site that's not secure, and something happens to your card, the bank cannot be blamed for any fraudulent activity that affects your card.

"So what we advise customers is that if they want to undertake a transaction on a site, they're not very certain about its security profile, just take your prepaid card and load just the amount you need to execute the transaction on the prepaid card.

"If you have to lose money, you only lose to the extent of what is on the prepaid card because it's not linked to your bank account."