Internet banking fraud alertness in the banking sector: South Africa

Abstract

This paper analyzes internet banking fraud alertness to the general public by the South African banking institutions. The study is centered on routine activity theory, which is a criminology theory. A qualitative content analysis was used as the research technique for the interpretation of the text data from each bank’s website through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns to provide an in-depth understanding of internet banking fraud alertness in the banking sector. A sample size of 13 out of 16 locally and foreign controlled retail banks in South Africa was used. The findings report that banks are not adequately providing internet fraud alertness information to the general public on their websites notwithstanding that most banks they do provide such information to log-in users and the use of that information is doubtful. This study suggests a need to augment internet banking fraud alertness information and passably inform internet banking users of the types of internet banking fraud perpetrated by internet fraudsters before they log-in for transacting. Considering the current and widespread quandary of internet banking fraud, the information of this paper is important for internet banking users to improve their aptitude in identifying fraudulent schemes and circumvent them, and for the banking institutions to invest more in the provision of internet banking fraud information to the general public.

The assessment of the impact of cyberfraud in the South African banking industry

“…The variables used for the testing of H2 include reputation loss, revenue loss, productivity loss and shareholder’s loss. This is because cyberfraud perpetration has been linked to the organisation’s revenue losses, reputation, customer’s loyalty and shareholder’s confidence (Joyner, 2011; Dzomira, 2015, p. 13).…”

Investigating the level of effectiveness of the anti-fraud technologies employed by the South African banking industry for cyberfraud mitigation

“…In this sense, also literature suggests that banks should employ internet banking fraud alert and sophisticated probing and tracking tools such as the intrusion detection system to track and communicate the nature of cybercrime perpetrated by cybercriminals as a means to sensitise customers and invest in technologically driven solutions to curb cyberattacks (Dzomira, 2015, p. 13; 2017, p. 143; Wu et al , 2019, pp. 3–4).…”

“…Existing literature on cybercrime in South Africa has traced one of the causes of cybercrime to recent innovations and technological development (Dlamini and Mbambo, 2019, p. 1; Herselman and Warren, 2004, p. 263; Dzomira, 2017, p. 143; Coetzee, 2018, p. 3; Dagada, 2013, p. 148; Sutherland, 2017, p. 84). In South Africa, Mbelli and Dwolatzky (2016, p. 1) explain that information security challenges due to cyberattacks continue to pose a serious economic threat to financial institutions and the country as a whole.…”

Development of a multi-objectives integer programming model for allocation of anti-fraud capacities during cyberfraud mitigation

“…For this study, the formulated objectives are the minimisation of the total allocation cost of the anti-fraud capacities and the maximisation of the forensic accounting capacities in all cyberfraud incident prone spots. The choice of the two objectives stems from the fact that, some financial institutions face challenges of inadequate resources relating to staffing and extended workloads, as well as financial resources (Dzomira, 2015, p. 9). Mac (2015) highlights effective employee allocation and human capacity development as part of the sustainable steps to cyberfraud mitigation.…”