The Absa Bank Kenya has recovered Sh227 million that was lost through incidents of banking fraud. This recovery was done in the financial year ended December 31, 2024. In the same financial year, the bank stopped the loss of an estimated Sh334 million that was attempted at the bank.
The Sh227 million that the bank recovered was seven times more than the Sh32 million that the bank had recovered in the previous 2023 financial year. In that financial year, the bank had stopped the loss of an estimated Sh498 million.
This comes as incidents of banking fraud increase in the country. “We had an increase in fraud attempts within the control space, particularly affecting our customers through social engineering frauds. To address this challenge, we continue implementing robust security measures and educating our customers on fraud prevention. We aim to protect their assets and maintain trust, thereby supporting a secure banking environment,” Absa Bank Kenya said in a statement.
The bank noted that with the high mobile penetration in the country, and adoption of digital banking, the banking industry and its customers had become a target for scammers.
“As the general population has varying levels of digital awareness and literacy, vulnerability to these schemes remains high. In addition, fraudsters continue to evolve and innovate, resulting in new methods to defraud our customers, thus creating the need for consistent vigilance.”
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However, the bank noted that it had upgraded its banking systems in the year ended December 2024 to enhance fraud detection and data analytics aimed at cutting false positives.
A false positive in banking fraud occurs when a legitimate transaction is incorrectly classified as being potentially fraudulent. That means that a false positive flags a suspected incident of fraud and triggers a delay in the completion of the transaction, when in fact, no actual fraud has actually occurred.
