By JONAH NWOKPOKU

Payment processors, financial services providers and other players in the information and communication technology including the judiciary and the law enforcement agencies in Nigeria have called for tougher measures to combat electronic payment related fraud in the country.

The stakeholders made the call at the just concluded 5th annual Payment Systems & Fraud Conference 2014 organised by Electronic Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN), in Lagos.

The conference which had theme: ‘Unbundling the Criminal Justice Process in a Digital Economy,’ was a strategic effort by EPPAN at fighting cyber crime in the country.

Delivering a keynote address at the conference, Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Oluwafunmilayo Olajumoke, said e-payment industry in Nigeria is prone to manipulations and attacks by fraudsters, and that it has become imperative for the criminal justice sector to develop the appropriate tools and strategies for combating e-crimes and e-fraud in the country.

Also speaking, Executive Director of Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System, NIBBS Mrs Christable Onyejekwe, said Nigerian businesses especially in the finance sector incur huge cost preparing against fraud. She noted that e-fraud comes with enormous social, financial and economic cost which should have been channelled to business expansion and raising quality of life. Represented by NIBBS’ Chief Risk Officer, Mr. Osioke Ojior, she charged financial institutions in the country to step up their fights against electronic and other related financial fraud.

According to her, some banks find it difficult to notice when they are breached, resulting to several billions of naira loss to fraudsters yearly.

She disclosed that according to e-fraud report available to NIBSS between January and September, 2014, Nigerian banks have already lost over N4 billion from 916 attempted frauds. Other financial players lost about N32 million in 30 attempted attacks.

Earlier in a welcome address, Chief Executive Officer of E-PPAN, Mrs. Onajite Regha, said that, compared to any other time in its history, the e-payment industry faces an overwhelming variety of security challenges as the transaction environment grows in size and complexity.

Regha said that with more stakeholders, payment channels and the users driving the use of payment cards, the need to enhance the integrity of an increasingly dynamic system while ensuring global acceptance is more important than ever.

She noted that, “On a global level, fraud continues to migrate from more secured to less secured regions and channels. This obvious shift is accelerated by an increasingly adept and organised criminal community that seeks to exploit security vulnerabilities and fraud. Criminals are targeting not just unmonitored, stand-alone, point-of-interaction devices, but also launching sophisticated attacks on the private networks of well-known entities, such as major data processors and top-tier merchants”.