The Africa Partner, Risk, Regulatory and Forensics at Deloitte, Dr. Antonio Pooe, has stressed the need to make the lives of fraudsters difficult, calling for a coordinated collaboration to deal with banking fraud, which he described as a global problem.

According to him, because fraudsters collaborate and share information among themselves, there is a need for banks and institutions to also collaborate, strategise, and pull the trigger against fraudsters.

Speaking at a webinar organised by Deloitte Ghana on “Banking Sector Fraud: How We see It and What Can be Done”, Dr. Pooe, said forgery and document manipulation remain a major problem, highlighting the issue of social engineering, which he described as one of the tactics used by the fraudsters.

“Social engineering is certainly something that remains an issue. Banking customers suffer at different levels with this level of pressure in a creative way to solicit information. And certainly, forgery remains a problem across the board. Document manipulation and the use of technology in one way or the other. So that is a problem”.

“I think what we need to remember is we are dealing with the same frauds in principle. It's just the means of committing, the means to an end change. So, whereas in the past we would forge a physical document, now we're forging an electronic document, but forgery is forgery. And I go back to a point that Dr. Situ [Deloitte Ghana Assurance Partner] made, that we need to make fraudsters' lives difficult. I agree 100%.”, he alluded.

Dr. Pooe also spoke on the need to increase education among customers to beware of fraudsters, saying, many customers are vulnerable. “We need to create the level of awareness around what these fraudsters are, they are replicating Artificial Intelligence and we need to be smart”.

“We really need to think outside the box in terms of how we interact with technology as banks, and how we educate the public, as it were, to be able to interact with technology safely, and be aware of problems that exist. I talked about phishing, but there's also a simple thing that banks across the continent seem to do, which is voice authentication”, he mentioned.

“When you bring in synthetic AI problems, it's video and voice. So, all they need, criminals, is a few seconds of my voice, as an example, and suddenly, they can put a script and speak to a banker, and be able to access services, and the biometric would think it's Antonio speaking. So, these are problems that we're having”, he added.

The webinar featured Eric Cab-Beyuo, Head of Fraud Compliance and Reporting Unit, Bank of Ghana; Dr. Kwabena Situ, Assurance Partner; Patrick Baah Abankwa, Head, Member Experience and Growth, Chartered Institute of Bankers, Ghana and Charlotte Forson-Abbey, Financial Services Industry Leader and Audit Partner, Deloitte Ghana.