The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has met with telecommunications and financial technology companies (fintechs) representatives to check the increasing fraudulent withdrawals and use of pre-registered SIM cards to open wallet accounts.

In a statement, EFCC spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, said the meeting was held in Kano on Tuesday, with the commission urging the operators to implement measures to detect and report suspicious transactions to law enforcement agencies.

He said the zonal commander, Farouq Dogondaji, stressed that the impetus for the engagement was the commission’s concern about the increase in a pattern of fraudulent activities.

Mr Dogondaji said the partner showed that fraudsters gravitated towards fintechs because of some observed vulnerabilities.

The head of the cybercrime section of the Kano Command, Musa Olalekan, disclosed that 90 per cent of the cases received by the command bordered on fraudulent withdrawals mostly traced to wallet accounts of fraudsters.

Mr Olalekan noted that because of the higher level of compliance with regulations by deposit money banks, fraudsters preferred to use the fintechs due to their poor KYC process.

He further disclosed that most of the fraudsters used pre-registered SIM cards to perpetrate their fraudulent activities, which made it challenging to unmask them during the investigation.

The representatives of telecommunication companies and financial technology companies also shared their experiences and challenges in their line of work.

They highlighted some of the vulnerabilities and loopholes in their systems that cybercriminals exploited to perpetrate financial crimes such as identity theft, phishing and hacking.

They, however, expressed willingness to collaborate with the EFCC and other stakeholders, to eliminate these vulnerabilities and combat financial crimes.

Stakeholders at the parley were representatives of the major telecommunication companies (MTN, Airtel and 9mobile) and some financial technology companies: Opay Digital Services, Palmpay, Flutterwave and Kuda Microfinance.

(NAN)