Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mrs Elsie Addo Awdazi has said that financial crime in all its forms including money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud whether through offline or cyber related, siphoning and diversion of funds from the financial system by insiders to related parties, and others, all erode the integrity of the financial system.
She also said it destroys the confidence and trust that the Ghanaian public and the foreign counterparts have.
This has adverse ramifications for our economy, such as a reduction in the rate of savings and investments in the formal financial system, a reduction in international trade facilities and foreign investment inflows that support our economy, she intimated at a workshop of the Committee for Co-operation between Law Enforcement Agencies and the Banking Community (COCLAB) on Tuesday August 30.
Mrs Addo Awadzie told the gathering that “Key on your agenda for today’s meeting is to discuss Bank of Ghana’s recently published 2021 Fraud Report, which highlighted a disturbing prevalence of fraud in the banking sector, as reported by banks and other regulated institutions.
“Disturbing still, is the fact that most of the reported cases of fraud involve staff and
contractors of these financial institutions. Another worrying trend from the 2021 fraud report is the increasing levels of fraud associated with electronic money channels such as ATM fraud, mobile money fraud, and cyber fraud.”
“Members of COCLAB, I urge you to take a critical look at these developments and
identify concrete measures to help to address the underlying factors, so that we
reverse the trends.
“I also urge you to work together to speed up investigations and prosecutions for financial crimes, that led to the failure and demise of 420 of our regulated institutions in our recent past, as well as brought untold hardships to depositors, former employees, other creditors, and ultimately, tax payers, that had to pay to provide relief for those affected,” she added.
