Vehicle asset finance fraud up by 53%, says Sabric

Fraudulent vehicle applications and branch-before-deposit attacks are surging, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) says.

According to Sabric’s annual crime stats for 2021, released on Monday, vehicle asset finance fraud applications increased by 53% in 2021, with 20,103 incidents reported, compared with 13,095 in 2020.

Fraud detection systems implemented by banks identified and successfully prevented the majority of reported fraudulent applications from being approved last year, Sabric said.

Though the industry recorded an 8% decrease in associated robbery incidents overall in 2021, branch-before-deposit incidents increased by 56%, with financial losses in the same category increasing by 85%.

“This is the result of the implementation of 2020 Covid-19 regulations which limited the number of clients inside branches. As a result, perpetrators targeted bank customers waiting to enter the facility,” the report said.

“Unfortunately, criminals were able to anticipate customer behaviour, which was to take the shortest route to the branch entrance, and then target the victim while they were still in possession of their cash deposit.”

Card-not-present fraud with a debit card contributed to 55.3% of all card fraud. This type of fraud increased by 31.5% when compared to 2020.

ATM attacks increased by 11%, with a 17% increase in losses.

Sabric said it is concerned by the rise in the number of ATM attacks, which occurred despite the technology and security measures deployed to make ATMs safer.

From 2020 to 2021, digital banking fraud incidents decreased by 18%. The biggest decline in incidents occurred in mobile banking fraud. However, while the number of incidents declined, there was a 45% increase in the total gross losses in digital banking in the reporting period.

TimesLIVE