Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison
• The BoG has established a Financial Industry Security Operating Centre
• This means all 23 banks operating in the country will connect to centre in 2022
• The centre according to Dr. Addison will monitor and curb, ATM, cyber fraud
The Bank of Ghana has said all 23 banks operating in the country will from 2022, be connected to the Financial Industry Security Operating Centre.
The centre which has been established by the central bank forms part of efforts to reduce Automatic Teller Machine (ATM)
and cyber-related fraud in the banking sector.
“This is a developing matter; we are investigating it. As you know, the financial services are becoming technology-driven financial services, the risk associated with ATMs will also go up. Fortunately, we are looking very closely at that.”
“We have the security operating centre at the Bank of Ghana, which monitors our cyber resilience. Currently, we are in the midst of establishing a Financial Industries Hub.”
“I believe the Bank of Ghana is ready, the Agriculture Development Bank is getting connected. Hopefully, by a year from now, we will have all 23 banks connected to the industries hub, and we will be able to monitor the cyber risk associated with the entire banking system in Ghana.”
Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison said this in response to a question posed during the 102nd press conference of the Monetary Policy Committee of the central bank.
Touching on the rising spate of ATM and cyber-related fraud in the banking sector, Dr. Addison said the central bank was keen on investigating incidences.
Meanwhile, a 2020 report on banking industry fraud showed there has been a rise in cases and value of ATM fraud and other types of fraud activities.
The value of fraud recorded by Banks and Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions operating in the country was about GH¢1 billion in 2020.
This represented a surge of over 750% as compared to a reported value of fraud recorded back in 2019 which was pegged at GH¢115 million.