EFFECTS FRAUDULENT ACT IN THE BANKING SECTOR

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Fraudulent act in the banking industry” is of a peculiar concern to the monetary control and supervisory authority who are consigned with the safety of individual banks and the firmness of the banking industry.  Fraudulent act” is common in Nigeria banking industry, but clients as well as employees, temporary staff engage in fraud and forgeries in banks. Frequent occurrence of fraud ultimately distracts the attention of the management and lead to increase in running cost. Time and energy that would have been spent improving customer service would be expended in preventing fraud. Increasing instances of fraud and  forgeries in our banks lately if not shaped would pose certain threats to the stability and survival of individual banks and the public presentation of the industry as a whole. Reported instances of fraud in merchant banks dropped significantly from 16 in 1997 to 9 during the year 1998 similarly, there was a decrease in the total quantity involved, from 187-59 million in 1997 to N67.35 million in 1998.

Fraud in whatever loss is limitless in classification. In the banking industry, there could be the presentation of forged checks granting of unauthorized loans unauthorized overdraft, position of fictitious credits, suppression of checks, fraudulent transfer and withdrawal and so on, Dr John Orjih in his text, defined fraud as the deliberate effort aimed at obtaining unlawful advantage at the hurt of another individual who is the true possessor of the store. Awosanya, widely defined fraud as any deliberate action in whatever configuration, written, spoken, physically designed  to deprive a legitimate owner or his or her asset, property or right. Osborne, defined fraud as a means of obtaining material advantage by unfair or wrongful means involving certain moral responsibilities.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

 Banks operate on the pivot of public confidence and faith in the ability of the bank of delivering as and when demanded the Nigeria society is poisoned with the desire to become rich fast so as to feel important, as they behave that wealth is the measure for power and importance. It is in the realization of these facts that those get rich quick minded set of people steer their attention to defrauding the banks.

Fraud has caused the loss of large sums of money, contributing to the liquidating of several banks and consequent unemployment and similar troubles. This work is therefore beset by the actuate problem of finding out the genesis and cause of fraudulent act in the banking industry the magnitude of fraudulent practices in the police records remains worrisome, and this has made  a partial paralysis on the base of the stem of the Nigeria banking system.