United Bank for Africa (UBA), with a market cap of ₦1.93 trillion ($1.29 billion) and presence in 20 African countries, cut fraud losses by 45.35% to ₦288 million ($192,130) in the first half of 2025, even as its profit after tax increased by 6.06% to ₦335.53 billion ($223.84 million) in the period, according to its latest financial statement.

Most of the fraud losses occurred through electronic channels and unauthorised transfers. The bank disclosed that ₦2.40 billion ($1.60 million) worth of transactions were linked to fraud attempts in H1 2025, but only 12% resulted in actual losses.

In H1 2024, fraud attempts totalled ₦2.39 billion ($1.59 million), but 22% of these resulted in losses of ₦527.01 million ($351,579). Electronic fraud, which cost UBA ₦229.10million ($152,837) in H1 2024, decreased to ₦99 million ($66,044) in H1 2025. Fraudulent transfers cost ₦148 million ($98,733) despite only seven incidents during the period. This represents a 47.43% decline from ₦281.53 million ($187,814) lost in H1 2024.

These losses are only a small part of UBA’s profit, but they underline the vulnerability of financial institutions to fraud. This decrease in fraud also coincided with significant investments by banks in IT infrastructure and technology-related services in 2024.

UBA spent ₦48 billion ($32.02 million) on tech upgrades in 2024, but in H1 2025, IT expenses stood at ₦6.72 billion ($4.48 million) from ₦6.70 billion ($4.47 million) in H1 2023.

Enhanced IT systems lead to fewer fraud incidents and financial losses for customers, Nabila Mohammed, a research analyst at Chapel Hill Denham, told TechCabal in April.

UBA’s disclosure comes at a time when Nigerian banks are under increased pressure to fight fraud. While reported fraud cases dropped by 33.8% in Q1 2025, the amount involved surged by over 240%, according to the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC).

“This is a clear signal that fraud is getting smarter, not smaller,” FITC said. While it has not yet released the actual figures, Nigerian banks lost ₦1.39 billion ($927,297) to fraud in Q4 2024, a 86.3% decline from the ₦10.12 billion ($6.75 million) recorded in Q3 2024. While fraud cases across web, bank branch, and mobile channels have fallen, POS and ATM fraud are rising.

“The unprecedented surge in cheque-related fraud losses (19,470.8% increase) underscores the urgent need for enhanced cheque security measures,” FITC warned.

Despite this decline in fraud cases, the Central Bank of Nigeria, in January, directed NIBSS to debit the settlement accounts of banks that receive fraud proceeds, aimed at forcing banks to tighten internal controls and curb illicit financial flows.

“Internal control procedures are instituted which as far as reasonably possible, safeguard the assets of the Bank and prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities,” UBA added in its H1 2025 results.

Note: exchange rate used: ₦1498.98/$

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