Banks Want CBN to Establish Security Framework against Cyber Crime

Chief security officers of banks in the country have urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to establish an internal framework within the banking system to prevent cybercrime fraudsters from operating bank accounts.

The Chief Security Officers (CSOs) of banks in the country agreed, in principle that the CBN should implement the anti-cyber crime policy in the banking sector as a means of curbing the activities of internet fraudsters that use the banks to perpetrating their illicit activities.

Their stance was one of the fallouts of a weeklong Nigerian Financial Sector Global Cyber Security Conference, which ended at the weekend at Transcorp Hotel, in Calabar, Cross River State.

Giving a summary at the end of the conference that had, mostly, Israelis and other foreign nationals as trainers, the Leader of the CSOs, Mr. Sam Okenye told journalists that the expected framework will anchor on the Biometric Verification Number (BVN).

“The idea is that when the framework comes out from the CBN, the BVN will become a major tool to fight fraudsters.

“Our recommendation from this conference is that it should become an instrument to kick fraudsters out of the banking system.

So, those who defraud individuals in banks, and other customers of banks; once the investigation fully proves that they are fraudsters, we believe that the other legal consideration will be taken care of by that framework,” Okenye said.

Okenye added: “Such framework should become a major instrument to kick those guys out of the banking system for a while, and they probably will be restricted from channel transaction depending on what the framework will say.

But, the Chief Security Officers (CSOs) of banks are of the opinion that there is need for that framework to be out to help combat cybercrime and fraud and this is crucial.”

He said the “BVN today is a major tool that will help the banks combat fraud. With the BVN you can identify a particular customer of a bank.

According to him, if a customer or an individual opens an account in a bank and decides to defraud others or commit fraud, like the cyber criminals today who open account with various banks with intent to defraud, it would be very easy to use the BVN to identify such fraudsters.

“Even when they want to open a new account, and once their BVN is identified and they are blacklisted, if they go to any bank to open account, they will know that this guy has committed fraud before an should not be allowed,” he added.

He said a committee in the CBN is already working on modalities to come out with the framework, but stressed that the CSOs of banks during this cyber security session also re-emphasised the need to ensure that BVN becomes a major tool to also fight fraudsters in the banks and such fraudsters should not be allowed to continue to defraud people in the banking system.