The latest figures from the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) show fraudsters attempted to cash more than GH¢923,883.86 using 26 cloned cheques at various banks last year.
Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the FIC, Mr Philip Danso, disclosed that eight cloned cheques with the face value of GH¢88,623.54 were successfully drawn by fraudsters.
Out of the 26 cloned cheques presented to the banks to be cashed, 18 of the cheques with face value of GH¢835,260.32 were detected and returned unpaid.
Some suspects, he said, had been grabbed, while others who attempted to dupe various banks are on the run.
With the advent of technology, crimes such as these have become very sophisticated and rampant. This has contributed to the spread of cheque cloning fraud with all manner of printers, software and other technologies being used to make cheques that look so perfect that it would take experts a lot of laboratory analysis before the forgery is detected.
We think that, banks must be very careful as our payment methods continue to change, since fraudsters will also find new ways to trick banks of their money.
From what we hear, the thieves use printers, copiers and the newest software to make clone cheques with high resemblance to the original ones leaving no traits to detect even by experts.
This phenomenon should alert financial institutions in Ghana that fraudsters are stepping up their efforts to steal money from their customers’ bank accounts,
We believe that one of the ways to successfully fight cheque forgery and cloning in the banking sector is to employ a higher and more sophisticated technology to detect what may ordinarily appear genuine but is false.
From figures published, the 2013 figures are similar to the 2014 number that is been recorded and this shows that the fraudsters are becoming more sophisticated.
Now a days, banks are faced with stiff competition and are looking for ways to reduce cost, they cannot afford to lose millions of cedis to cheque cloning.
It is therefore advisable for the banks to deploy technologies to arrest the menace as soon as possible.
In recent times, cheque forgery has attained a worrisome level in the local and international financial landscape going by its negative impact on Ghana’s economy and the entire global economy.
We must bear in mind that as a nation, this cloned cheques menace could stop foreign investors from investing in our economy and this would have a reversal effect on job creation, leading to massive unemployment.
Ultimately, the reputation of the country could be dented by the nuisance, since businesses in severe cloned cheques economies suffer from the brunt.
We believe that another major way of reducing this act is by sending SMS alerts to both payer and drawer in cheque transactions as soon as the instruments are received for clearing.
In this regard, we believe that banks must make SMS alerts mandatory for such transactions.
Additionally, banks can also alert their customers with a phone call and obtain confirmation when dealing with suspicious or high-value cheques.
This matter must be taken seriously since it is evident that many of such frauds could have been avoided had due diligence been observed at the time of handling and/or processing the cheques and monitoring newly-opened accounts.
