The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Tuesday, met with representatives of telecommunications and financial technology companies, fintechs, in Kano to tackle the increasing incidence of fraudulent withdrawals and use of pre-registered SIM cards to open wallet accounts.
According to the Zonal Commander, Farouq Dogondaji, a recent pattern of fraudulent activities clearly shows that fraudsters are gravitating towards Fintechs “because of some observed vulnerabilities.”
The Head of Cyber Crime Section of the Kano Command, Musa Bashir Olalekan, also noted that 90% of the cases received by the Command bordered on fraudulent withdrawals which is mostly traced to wallet accounts of fraudsters.
He said because of the higher level of compliance with regulations by Deposit Money Banks, fraudsters prefer to use the fintechs due to their poor Know Your Customer (KYC) process.
Olalekan further disclosed that most of the fraudsters used pre- registered SIM cards to perpetrate their fraudulent activities which makes it difficult to unmask them during investigation.
The Commission therefore tasked the operators to put in place measures to detect and report suspicious transactions to law enforcement agencies.
The representatives of the telecommunication companies also highlighted some of the vulnerabilities and loopholes in their systems that cybercriminals exploit to perpetrate financial crimes.
They particularly mentioned identity theft, phishing, and hacking, among others and expressed their willingness to collaborate with the EFCC and other stakeholders to eliminate these vulnerabilities and combat financial crimes.
Stakeholders present at the meeting include representatives of the major telecommunication companies (MTN, Airtel and 9mobile).
Also present were financial technology companies like Opay Digital Services, Palmpay, Flutterwave and Kuda Microfinance.
