ATM: 'BANKS SHOULD INTRODUCE MEASURES TO PREVENT FRAUD'
Following complaints by ATM cardholders on fraud, banks in Nigeria have been urged to put the right measures in place, in addition to the existing guidelines by the Central Bank of Nigeria, to stem the tide.
A financial expert maintained that this was in line with global best practices and would go a long way in building the nation's financial system.
Speaking to our correspondent on the telephone on Tuesday, the Principal Consultant, Mobile Money Africa, Mr. Emmanuel Okoegwale, said that the instruction of the CBN that all card issuing banks should deploy fraud monitoring tools, should be followed to the letter.
He said cardholders should be provided with a facility to block their accounts immediately using their mobile phones whenever they receive an SMS in respect of transactions they suspect to be fraudulent.
Okoegwale said the need to implement customer fraud alert for suspicious transactions was commendable as the mobile channel was ubiquitous and could be quickly assessed on the move.
He said the measure affected financial institutions especially in the area of Internet banking, noting that with the proposed use of mobile banking, response rate would be faster and most potential frauds could be timely aborted.
He said, 'Though some players may kick against it at the early stages, it is still to the benefit of the customers which they have a mandate to protect.
'Some of the solutions that I had seen in the past were actually used for mobile payment platforms but can be deployed for other financial services, and in some instances, might slow down processing turnaround time as some transactions might require confirmation from the customer's mobile. But what is the advantage of speed if it is not secured?'
The mobile money expert said customer protection was key to industry sustainability and all players should embrace it even if it came with some additional cost.
The CBN, through a statement signed by its Director, Banking and Payments System Department, Mr. A.S. Atoloye, said the use of temporary workers (that is students on industrial attachment/vacation job, National Service Corps members and contract employees) for card management and issuance /distribution of PIN mailers, should be stopped forthwith.
It also said banks must send SMS alerts to the telephones/email addresses of cardholders whenever there was a debit transaction via payment card. Evidence of the dispatch of such messages would be required in cases of non-receipt of the alerts by account holders as a result of telephone network failures.