Cape Town - Credit card fraud decreased by 7.2% decrease between 2019 to last year, with a loss of R989 969 327, but digital banking fraud increased by 33%.
SA Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric), on behalf of the banking industry, on Wednesday released its annual crime statistics for last year.
Digital banking fraud increased by 33%, debit card fraud rose by 22%, while on a positive note, credit card fraud decreased by 7%, ATM attacks decreased by 9% overall, ATM explosive incidents increased by 20%, and robberies and burglaries also increased by 42% and 12% respectively.
Sabric chief executive, Nischal Mewalall said Covid-19, in conjunction with the implementation of regulations of the disaster management Act had a notable influence on financial crime trends last year.
Mewalall said it triggered changes in human behaviour, human movement, and policing, creating new opportunities for criminals which significantly impacted the number of crime incidents.
He said while some crime types decreased, others increased as criminals exploited Covid-19 for their own gain.
Overall, Sabric has seen an increase in banking crime incidents.
“As customers turned to online shopping and settling payments on apps, criminals enhanced their efforts to phish customers to steal their personal data to defraud them on digital and online platforms,” said Mewalall.
He said cash-in-transit (CIT) robberies decreased significantly due to the level 5 lockdown in April and May last year, but once restrictions were lifted, these increased again by 22% as criminals were able to move with fewer restrictions and fear of roadblocks and searches.
He said when lockdown restrictions were lifted to level 3 in June, CIT incidents suddenly spiked with 40 incidents reported during August and December last year.
That increase could be attributed to criminals making up for lost cash opportunities with the lifting of movement restrictions.
Gauteng remained the province with the highest number of reported CIT robbery incidents (46%) followed by the Eastern Cape (12%), Mpumalanga (11%), KwaZulu-Natal (10%), Western Cape (9%), Limpopo (7%), Free State (3%), North West (2%) and Northern Cape (0%).
Community safety standing committee chairperson in the legislature Reagan Allen welcomed Sabric’s release of the crime statistics for last year as an important step towards ensuring that financial crimes have been reduced.
“Although robberies and burglaries showed a decrease, I call on members of the public to be weary of fake websites and phishing emails, as criminals are becoming increasingly more innovative in catching unsuspecting customers,” he said.
“Your personal data, when combined with technology, has become the new key to the safe that holds your money in a bank, so you must safeguard your data to prevent criminals getting access to your safe.”
Mewalall warned that looking ahead, cybercrime and data breaches would represent a significant threat to customers and banks, because even the best security and technology could be compromised when criminals source and use legitimate data illegally, to carry out a crime.