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FNB clients lose N$4 million to fraud in two months

FIRST National Bank (FNB) Namibia investigated 103 fraud incidents during November and December last year, totalling a loss of just over N$4 million.

This was revealed by FNB Namibia chief risk officer Johan du Plessis yesterday. Du Plessis said about N$1 million was successfully recovered for affected clients.

“Looking at the period of November and December 2024, FNB has reported and investigated 103 fraud incidents.

This represents less than 1% of the customer base impacted by fraud. The total gross loss due to fraud amounted to just over N$4 million, with just under N$1 million successfully recovered for affected clients,” du Plessis said.

On Sunday, the police also reported that during 15 and 17 January, a 60-year old woman from Uukwamatsi village at Okahao lost N$1.1 million from her FNB bank account.

“The suspect(s) employed an unknown strategy to gain unauthorised access to the victim’s FNB account,”

Omusati police commander commissioner Ismael Basson says.

He says the perpetrator(s) then proceeded to transfer funds to various other FNB accounts, resulting in a substantial financial loss for the complainant.

Du Plessis said a recent case reported by the Police raised concern.

“This case highlights the extreme lengths criminals are willing to go to. In the process of trying to procure goods and services, our client met individuals that misrepresented themselves, however, after a thorough investigation, we can confidently confirm that this incident was unrelated to any internal FNB personnel,” Du Plessis said.

He said the entire industry needs to come together to fight crime and fraud.

“We need to come together as an industry, educate our clients and work with law enforcement. I strongly believe the industry and regulators need to come together to form a united front. In South Africa, there are some examples of how the industry came together and formed the South African Banking Risk Information Centre. Our regulators in

Namibia are keen that we form a similar body and we are partnering with them to do that,” Du Plessis said.

Meanwhile, FNB Namibia chief operating officer Rodney Forbes says the bank takes fraud prevention seriously.

“There is immense investment to ensure that our security and security protocols are up to standard in the systems that we undertake to monitor specific activity, including staff access, staff activity and access to systems, and access to what information they have on those particular systems.

“Where we flag and find activities that require a relook, you know, potentially suspicious, we actually investigate and we mitigate,” Forbes says.

Retail banking chief executive Nangula Kauluma dispels the public perception that bank employees have access to client bank accounts.

“I’d like to take the opportunity to dispel the myth that everybody in the building can see any and everybody’s information. It doesn’t happen that way. Individuals who have certain rights to access systems, they have certain rights of what they can do on the system, what they can see on the system, what they are permitted to be interacting with and they’re monitored,” Kauluma says.

She says the bank tracks all activity across its systems.

“I think there is a duty for us to come up for our employees. They work under very transparent circumstances,” Kauluma says.

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