The unified front against fraud: Why vigilance is our best defense

By Subuola Abraham, Head of Compliance and MLRO

The last 2 weeks of November are often marked and celebrated as ‘Fraud Awareness Week’ . This year Subuola Abraham, Head of Compliance and MLRO at the pan African British Bank-GHIB, penned an editorial on the key themes for the week. Financial crime, including fraud remain a serious challenge to Africa’s financial ecosystem. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation estimates Africa loses  almost $100bn in financial crime annually.

This week marks International Fraud Awareness Week – a timely and necessary reminder that the battle against financial crime is not abstract; it is ongoing, highly sophisticated and impacts every single one of us. As an MLRO, my primary concern is the integrity of our financial system, and that integrity is directly threatened by the rising tide of fraud.

At its core, Fraud is not just about financial loss. It’s about trust – trust employees, the Board and customers place on banks, including GHIB.

As financial professionals, we stand at the frontline of defence against those who seek to misuse our industry for criminal gain. Every alert raised, every due diligence check performed, and every suspicious activity report filed contributes to a safer financial environment for everyone.

Fraudsters today are more advanced and sophisticated than ever. They use artificial intelligence, deepfake technology  and clever social engineering to defraud people. This spans the full gamut of banking transactions -from sophisticated  corporate and institutional banking transactions to micro mobile wallet transfers.

While our systems help detect suspicious activity, no technology can replace human judgement and common sense. It therefore takes a combined effort of systems and people to combat the fight against financial crime.

The Current Landscape

Over the past year, we have seen a marked rise in several types of fraud including:

• Authorised Push Payment (APP): where victims are tricked into voluntarily transferring money to fraudsters e.g. investment fraud, invoice fraud and impersonation fraud.
• Synthetic identity fraud: where real and fake information are blended to create a “ghost identity”.
• Romance scam: where criminals create fake online profiles to deceive people into a fraudulent romantic relationship to steal their money or personal information.

Our Roles and Responsibility

As the MLRO, I see firsthand how vigilance makes a difference. Many of the suspicious activity reports submitted have directly led to law enforcement investigations, asset freezes and disruption of criminal networks. That’s the power of awareness in action. It is important to emphasise that this can only be achieved by collective effort.

Below are 3 processes that help make a difference:

1. Know Your Customer! Go beyond the basic checks. Know when your customers deviate from their normal behavioural or transactional pattern. It could be a red flag that a fraudster has taken over the account.
2. Verify! . independent verification of payment instructs is crucial. Confirm it using a known phone number or another secure method.
3. Report It! If something feels off, don’t ignore it. Report it immediately. Your report might be the missing piece that helps uncover a larger fraud network.

Preventing fraud isn’t just a job for the compliance team- it a shared responsibility. We need to build a culture where careful thinking is valued and speaking up is encouraged.

Our strongest defence against fraud isn’t just our system or policies- It is our people.

A culture where everyone feels confident to challenge and report without any hesitation. Fraud Awareness week is an opportunity to reflect, learn, and recommit to that culture. Let us make vigilance part of our everyday practice- not just this week, but every week.

Subuola Abraham is the Head of Compliance and MLRO for Ghana International Bank (GHIB) and has been with the bank since September 2024. Prior to joining GHIB, Subuola was the Group Chief Compliance Officer for Guaranty Trust Bank from 2014 to 2021 and prior to that, the Group Chief Compliance Officer for United Bank for Africa.

In her current Subuola is driving GHIB’s program internally and with the Banks customers to ensure optimum rigor to assure quality and sustainable transactions. This spans the Banks global operations.

Subuola is a Barrister-at Law in Nigeria and a Solicitor of England and Wales. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.

The post The unified front against fraud: Why vigilance is our best defense appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

Read Full Story