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‘How to achieve 80% cyber safety for financial sector’

By Adeyemi Adepetun
01 April 2015   |   12:09 am
WITH the festivities of the Easter period coinciding with the ongoing 2015 elections in Nigeria, the Electronic Payments Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN) has offered banking customers tips to achieving up to 80 per cent financial security against the antics of cyber criminals.
Regha Onajite,jpg

Regha Onajite

WITH the festivities of the Easter period coinciding with the ongoing 2015 elections in Nigeria, the Electronic Payments Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN) has offered banking customers tips to achieving up to 80 per cent financial security against the antics of cyber criminals.

According to Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of E-PPAN, Mrs. Regha Onajite, who stated this, banking customers should not because of the elections obsession be carried away from taking proper protection of their personal sensitive data connected to their financial activities.

Onajite explained that this is the period of election and there is a lot of anxiety. “We are trying to change to a new administration or retain the existing one and because we are anxious about our political future, a lot of people may let down their guards in their financial security. “We should always be focused and on the alert because the financial fraudsters are always focused.

And they always say that fraud migrates to a state of less security. So, if you are not alert, you can fall victims of frauds in this period. “What we should do as individuals is to protect ourselves, our personal details because once you are able to protect our personal details, it reduces your chances of being defrauded by 50 per cent and even by 80 per cent.

“So, the other 20 per cent would be handled by the financial institutions through different measures they have put in place to ensure that their customers are safe. Electronic payments come with a lot of convenience.

It uses a lot of speed. “It, therefore, means that if somebody is about to get your details or cards and access your channels of payment, the person will also be able to conveniently and speedily steal your money,” she said. She also urged bank customers to be couscous of the increasing wave of phishing, saying “You need to protect yourself always.

Do not open unsolicited emails, do not respond to them, don’t feel your information online as this may be phishing, which makes you look your personal financial details.” Onajite said though with electronic payments, a lot of banking customers have gotten increased financial security since they carry less cash and rely more on electronic platforms for their transactions.

Illustrating this, she said: “So many of us went home during the election without having cash on us but relied solely on electronic channels to access fund and carry out other transactions.

“If we don’t have our ATM cards, there would have been a lot of robberies during the elections period but because the robbers themselves know that you don’t have cash at homes, they find robbing unattractive.

Indeed, also explained that electronic payment had increased your personal security.” The E-PPAN CEO, however, stated that because businesses are now transacted online, “what we have to do is to protect our electronic payment personal details which can help the cyber criminals to get our hard-earned cash,” saying that for the Easter period, “we always know that during festive period, cyber crimes always peak because people like to buy things online and do fund transfers to friends, parents and relatives.”

As such, Onajite argued “everything still boils down to us, as bank customers, to take it as our personal responsibility to protect our personal financial details during and after Easter.” While urging bank customers to go for their Bank verification Numbers (BNV) registration exercise, she counseled them on the need to be more security-conscious so as not to be hoodwinked by fraudsters, who are also deploying the BVN exercise as a way to dupe people.

“One thing they use to catch their unsuspecting victims currently is the ongoing Bank verification Numbers (BNV) registration. Everybody is supposed to do the BVN and I urge Nigerians to go and do this exercise with their banks, IT only takes few minutes. We should know that no bank would send you an email to go online to put in your details all in the name of registering for your BVN. So these are the things I want us to be on the look-out for in this period of election the festive Easter period,” she added.

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