Banks urged to be more vigilant

Brian Benza
Staff Writer | Thursday April 15, 2010 00:00

 

He was speaking at a Standard Chartered Bank breakfast meeting held to foster a closer working relationship between DIS agents and the bank for fighting financial crime at Cresta Lodge in Gaborone yesterday.

'We have noticed a sharp increase in organised financial crimes in this country over the last few years,' Kgosi said. 'These range from cheque and card fraud to money laundering, identity theft and counterfeiting of banknotes.

'Financial institutions, especially banks, have lost a lot of money due to financial crime, and I must say most of the losses could have been avoided if banks had been more vigilant.

'Banks are losing money because of trust. Proper background checks are not being done when financial transactions are made. In most cases, it is either because people are just lazy or there is too much trust between the bank staff and clients.'

Kgosi said financial crime activities tended to flourish in institutions with weak internal controls, poorly trained staff, poor vigilance, violation of laid down procedures and poor inter-agency and institutional collaboration.

'Because criminals and their supporting structures do network, it is only fitting for us to strengthen our networking initiatives to fight the criminal networks,' he added.

Speaking at the same event, Standard Chartered Botswana's Head of Compliance and Assurance, Rutang Moses, said the bank had developed a zero tolerance strategy against fraud this year after witnessing high levels of financial crime last year.

'We have put many initiatives in place to strengthen our compliance,' she said.

'Today's gathering is one of a number of ways in which we are trying to cement our relationship with security agents in an effort to combat crime in financial institutions.'

Meanwhile, DIS chief Kgosi has warned buyers of FIFA World Cup tickets to be on the lookout for counterfeit tickets and related scams, particularly on the Internet. He was speaking in an interview with Mmegi on the sidelines of the breakfast meeting.

'We have unearthed a lot of scams on the Internet, and soccer fans should be on the lookout for these, especially those with highly attractive prizes,' Kgosi said.

In a related development, the government is in the process of establishing a financial intelligence agency following the adoption of the Financial Intelligence Act in April last year.

It is envisaged that the fraud-busting agency will prescribe fines of up to P1 million for organisations and individuals who fall foul of the law, either by commission or omission. It will also refer cases to the Botswana Police Service and the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crimes while working in tandem with a spectrum of judiciary, legal and financial bodies.

These developments come against the background of the Bank Adjudicator attending to 140 complaints last year, 15 percent of which were related to fraud.