Absa Bank Kenya Loses $716,566 Million to Fraud

However, the bank said its internal interventions to reduce fraud risk resulted in recovering KSh59.1 million ($393,213).

How? The bank claims that, in addition to four social media fraud awareness campaigns, it conducted a consumer and employee awareness campaign through messaging last year and sent 12 SMS alerts to customers.

Fraud is still a major issue in Kenya's financial sector. Studies show that online fraud in Kenya rose five times in 2020.

In line with trends observed in 2021, fraud continues to evolve rapidly and corresponds to customers' increased preference for digital propositions, according to Absa's inaugural sustainability report.

The lender says card-not-present fraud remains the most common type, followed by cheque fraud and stupefying.

Card-not-present fraud is a subset of credit card fraud in which the fraudulent transaction occurs without the customer physically presenting the card to the merchant.

Transactions conducted over the phone or online in which the user only provides credit card numbers are susceptible to fraud.