Since its establishment in 2011, Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) has led to very important industry decisions that have further secured the payments system within the financial services sector and the economy at large.
Essentially the focus of the Forum is to educate, enlighten and put in place necessary controls for avoiding electronic fraud in the e-payment space.
Consequently, the volume and value of electronic transactions in e-payment has been on the increase. The volume and value of fraud though globally on the increase but in Nigeria “we will count ourselves as one of those that have been fortunate because we put so many controls in place. So the assessment shows that Nigeria is not doing badly compared to so many other countries in the world when it comes to cyber crime and the issue of e-fraud”, Dipo Fatokun, chairman said.
The Forum has been able to deliver on the following: created an online presence for NeFF to create a platform that will ease access to information, have entered into collaboration with the economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to tackle card present fraud in Non-EMV environments. It has been able to create a membership schedule comprising of 47 organisations and 145 members. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which serves to guide the Forum’s activities has been signed and agreed to by the industry, among others.
Circulars like CBN pronouncement on two-factor authentication for internet banking processes, CBN pronouncement on card present fraud in Non-EMV environment have emanated from deliberations at NeFF.
NeFF last week unveiled a comprehensive annual Report with the theme; “e-Fraud: Fighting the battle, winning the war”. The Report is intended to document NeFF and banks’ achievements as an industry on the one hand, and also to showcase what individual institutions have done to secure the payments landscape on the other.
“We have articles from various contributors both from the banking and it industries. I recommend as something that should be read by everybody. It is going to help you on what you need to avoid if you want your account to be very safe”, he said in Lagos.
Speaking on the recommendation of the report he said users of e-banking products, must be aware of tactics of e-fraud such as sending you phishing e-mails, text messages that is meant to capture your data so that they can have access to your accounts.
‘So if we apply these recommedations – be careful with how you divulge your information, be careful about who you talk to about your account details then we will all be protected, and of course if you smell a rat, tell your bank’, he said.
However, the Forum last week looked at “Cybersecurity: The Need for Standards”. Fatokun sees this as appropriate because, Cybersecurity has now dominated discussions not just locally, but also globally. ‘We are no doubt aware that reviews to IT Standards for the Nigerian financial industry have accommodated Cybersecurity as a new scope to address the cybercrime challenge of Nigerian banks”.
The Bankers Committee has approved for a “World Cyber Security Financial Summit for the Nigeria Banking Industry” holding in Texas USA. This decision was arrived at, as a fall-out from recommendations of its Sub-Committee on Payments and Infrastructure, and some members of this forum will be in attendance at this summit.
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
