Internet Banking Fraud Balloons by Nearly 900%

The Bank of Jamaica, BOJ, says internet banking fraud has gone up by nearly 900 percent since 2020.

The central bank’s latest financial stability report for 2024 has identified internet fraud and cyber risks as two of the most significant emerging threats to the country’s banking sector.

The report was posted on the BOJ’s website on Monday.

Chevon Campbell has been reading the report.

Cybercrimes have been on the rise across the world due to the significant expansion of online banking sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jamaica has seen a similar expansion.

According to the Bank of Jamaica, internet banking fraud has increased due to a shift towards electronic methods for transacting business.

It says between 2020 and 2023, the country saw an eight-hundred and ninety percent increase in internet banking fraud.

That’s an increase in excess of $330 million compared to 2019 and the years prior.

The central bank also noted an uptick in physical robberies involving currency management and cash in-transit service providers and their impact on deposit taking institutions, DTIs.

However, the central bank says this represented a smaller portion of the monetary value of criminal related losses to financial institutions and their customers.

Based on a study conducted in 2024, credit and debit card fraud accounted for an annual average of just over 69 percent of the $800 million of total fraud amounts reported by financial institutions at the end of 2023.

Among major fraud types, loan and internal frauds continued to occur the least frequently and were of lesser values.

Notably, card and internet banking frauds were most prevalent in the higher digital traffic areas such as major towns and cities.

Kingston, Portmore and Spanish Town featured prominently as hot spots for internet banking fraud.

With respect to bank robberies, the BOJ says there were five reported attacks against armoured couriers during the review year, and ten robbery attempts at ABM locations.

Stolen funds amounted to approximately $145 million.

Reported attacks against armoured couriers were similarly concentrated in major towns and city centres in a few parishes, while other forms of robbery, mainly targeting ABMs, were identified in more rural areas.

Overall, deposit taking institutions indicated that the impact of robberies on customer relationships was minimal.

However, in an effort to maintain stability, the BOJ says various measures were undertaken by commercial banks to prevent and recover losses associated with fraud occurrences.

The central bank says prosecution and enforcement of fraud cases were also undertaken.

Additionally, banks introduced new anti-fraud measures.

However, the BOJ is warning that fraudsters are similarly adapting their techniques in response to tighter controls, leading to a significant rise in social engineering tactics.