By: Justicia Shipena
Over the past five years the national payment system (NPS) has experienced an increase in fraudulent transactions, Bank of Namibia (BoN) has said.
“The total value of fraudulent transactions perpetrated within the NPS has increased over the past five-year period,” the central bank reported.
For 2022 the total value of fraudulent transactions increased substantially compared to 2021, it revealed.
The banking industry recorded increases of N$638 000, N$11.5 million and N$5.9 million for the card, EFT, and e-money streams.
At the same time, payment card fraud increased by 9%.
“EFT fraud increased by 80%, and e-money payments fraud by 62%,” BoN stated.
The bank explained that the increase in payment card fraud was primarily due to card-not-present payment incidents perpetrated via internet banking platforms or mobile applications.
Meanwhile, EFT fraud was perpetrated primarily via phishing, adding that e-money payments resulted from incidents that were perpetrated via phone scams on especially the wallets.
The bank added that a total value of fraud attributable to card, EFT, and e-money streams for 2022 amounted to N$7.4 million, N$14.5 million and N$9.6 million.
“The total fraud perpetrated within the NPS remained within the fraud safety index indicator of 0.05% as per the bank’s strategic goal, with a figure of 0.00223%,” BoN said.
On currency management for the period under review, the central bank said it noted a 2.4% increase in the currency in circulation in 2022.
BoN said the increase is evident in the distribution of the banknotes and coins, with the most notable being the increase of 15.7% for the N$10 banknote.
Moreover, there has been an increase of 7.9% circulation for the N$30 commemorative banknote.
“The increase of 3.5% for the 10-cent coin is attributed to the discontinuation of the minting of the 5-cent coin in 2018,” said the report.
The central bank added that over the past five years, it has managed to effectively control the issuance of new currency into the market.
In addition it revealed that the N$10 and N$200 denominations remained the most distributed denominations.
“Whereas the highest value change with regards to banknotes in circulation was observed with the N$10 banknote at 15.7%.”
BoN further said during 2022, an increase of 32.95 was registered regarding counterfeits.
This was compared to the decrease of 57.4% noted for 2021.
The increase has seen a record of 206 counterfeits recorded in 2022, indicating 155 more than recorded in 2021.
However, the BoN emphasised that counterfeits remained of poor quality and below the bank’s threshold of 10 pieces per million in circulation, as well as the industry standard of 70 pieces per million in circulation.
On this it said the N$200 banknote denomination was the most counterfeited at 55.8%.
“Whereas no counterfeits were recorded for the N$30 commemorative banknote,” said BoN.
The bank noted a steady decline in the volume of counterfeited banknote pieces over the past five years. Email: justicia@thevillager.com.na
Fraud Transactions On The Rise In Namibia’s Payment System … N$200 banknote dominates faking list
