Introduction
1.1 Background Of The Study
Fraud can be described as a conscious premeditated action of a person or group of persons with the intention of altering the truth or fact for selfish personal monetary gain. It involves the use of deceit and trick and sometimes highly intelligent cunning and know how. The action usually takes the form of forgery, falsification of documents and forgery of signature and outright theft.
Employees as well as clients of firms in all industries engage in fraudulent practices all over the world. Although the existence of frauds in our banks is not an uncommon or unexpected phenomenon, it is worrying because of all the various problems confronting the Nigeria banking industry, that of fraud is easily the most intractable. The bank industry worries more about fraud because of the rather obvious damaging consequences of the acts on health and for the existence of the institutions.
Frauds in banks nearly always lead to loss of monies − monies that ordinarily belong to someone other than the banks. This loss results in some cases in reduced level of resources available for the use in the operations of the banks.
According to the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) annual report (2002), shows that 797 cases of fraud was reported in commercial banks and the amount involved in N12,919.55 billion.
In very bad cases where frauds occur with crippling frequency and in wholesale sizes, the bank may be formed to closedown as a result. When the bank loses money and it is wound up, the customers lose money. This leads to loss of confidence in the banks and reduced patronage. In our kind of financial environment where banking habit is being encouraged developed, this could result in a major set back for the efforts.
Fraudulent practices in the Nigerian banking industry is therefore of special concern to the monetary control and supervisory authorities who are charged with the safety of individual banks and the soundness of the banking industry.
1.2 Statement Of The Problem
Banks operate on the pivot of public confidence and trust on the ability of the bank to deliver as and when demanded. The Nigerian society is bedeviled with the desire to get rich quick so as to feel important, as Nigerians believe that wealth is the measure of power and importance. It is in realization of this fact that these “get rich quick” minded set of people direct their attention to defrauding the banks.
Frequent occurrence of frauds ultimately distracts the attention of the management and leads to increased running cost. time and energies that would have been spent improving customer services would be expanded on preventing frauds. Monies that would also have gone into service improvement activities would be expended in setting fraud control procedure and systems.
Moreover, during the year 2003, total of 23 banks lost N333.3million to theft and fraud according to the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) 2003, annual report.
Another reason why the banking industry like any other, worries about frauds is that it varies widely in nature, character and methodology.
There are two main sources of frauds in banks.
…
