Barclays has reignited the call for extra caution on the part of banking clients to avoid falling victim to instances of credit fraud. Head of Compliance for Barclays Africa, Lee Holmes addressed reporters in Gaborone this week.Holmes explained that credit fraud was twofold; the first is application related fraud, a form of identity theft, which involves a criminal applying for banking services with another person’s illegally, obtained details.
Holmes stated in nine out of ten cases, the victim would have been very lax. The second type is card skimming which occurs when one uses their debit or credit card to pay for a service by swiping. The magnetic strip is copied and the electronic data stolen, allowing criminals to clone the card and use it for their own purposes. There have been numerous cases where criminals actually inserted a machine into an ATM, and this machine copied data from ATM users cards.
“What we need to understand from an African perspective is that the technology that is available in Europe is available here as well,” said Holmes, adding, “we also need to understand that cyber criminals are very clever and that they are just as advanced here as they are in Europe so we all need to be careful. ”The compliance head explained that his bank is running a programme to minimise fraud risk to customers. Further, he advised bank customers to be vigilant. “Guard your pin number closely, never lend your card to third parties under any circumstances, and make use of the message alert system for credit card transactions,” he warned.
On the bank’s strategy against fraud, Holmes said all reported cases were investigated. He said bank customers were compensated for their losses, emphasising, however, that, “where the customer has knowingly shared their information, or was grossly negligent, as a business it’s hard for us to compensate that customer. Every customer has a duty to take every precaution to guard against credit fraud”