Commercial banks to have cyber officers in response to economic crimes

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) is working on a model to be issued to all commercial banks in the country as a measure to curb the rising economic and cybercrimes in the banking sector.

The move, according to the Central Bank, will compel all the banks to appoint a cybersecurity and information officer as part of the banking requirement.

In 2017, the number of reported fraud cases (1,418), to the BoG increased by about 42% from as compared to 41.66% for the same period (1001 cases) in 2016.

Attempted fraud for the same year was ¢190.38 million out of which ¢160.30 million was recovered.

According to the BoG, delays in detection of economic crime could have a significant impact on the performance of the industry.

This came to the fore at a financial crime sensitization workshop in Ada, Thursday.

Advisor at BoG, Grace Sottie said as part of measures to curb the menace, the Central Bank will soon ensure that all Bank will have a financial crime unit.

“The Bank of Ghana in response to the security lapses has recently instituted a cybersecurity Committee which has been mandated to implement the Central Bank’s Cyber and Information Security Directive,” she said.

She assured that the process has been extensively discussed with all stakeholders.

“It is expected that with the implementation of the Bank of Ghana’s Cyber and Information Security Directive, all banks will appoint a cyber and Information Security Officer (CISO).

“They will have direct access to senior management, set up a security subcommittee at the board level and seek the regulator’s approval before signing up with any cloud service provider,” she said.

The workshop brought together all stakeholders in the cybersecurity and ICT sector to deliberate on strategies’ to control economic crime in the country.