Alarming rise in financial crime in SA
The scene of of an ATM bombing in Cape Town. There has been a concerning uptick in ATM explosive attacks and digital fraud, according to Sabric’s annual crime report for 2022. File Picture: Henk Kruger, ANA
SOUTH Africa's battle against financial crime intensified in 2022, with a concerning uptick in ATM explosive attacks and digital fraud, according to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre’s (Sabric) Annual Crime Stats 2022 report.
Despite the activation of dye-stain technology, ATM explosive attacks rose by 23%. Disturbingly, criminals often succeeded in removing the stains from the cash.
However, there's a silver lining: branch before deposit robberies (before deposits are about to be made at a branch) plummeted by 39% in 2022, largely due to the arrest of main suspects in KwaZulu-Natal, a hot-spot for such incidents.
Digital crime, particularly banking application fraud, witnessed a 36% spike. Fraudsters employed an array of tactics, from social engineering to exploiting data vulnerabilities.
The persistent menace of "vishing" – where scammers pose as bank officials to extract sensitive data – remains a significant threat.
While banking apps saw more incidents, online banking fraud recorded the highest average financial losses per incident, marking a 9% increase from 2021. Phishing and vishing were the primary methods used by criminals.
On the bright side, mobile banking fraud incidents decreased by 9%, with SIM swap incidents dropping from 87% in 2021 to 76% in 2022. This suggests that such tactics are losing their effectiveness.
Vehicle asset finance (VAF) fraudulent applications dipped by 17.6%, thanks to robust fraud detection systems by banks.
Card fraud, encompassing debit and credit, declined by 18.4%. Additionally, card-not-present (CNP) fraud, despite having the highest fraud values, saw fewer incidents in 2022.