Society Gists

In a stunning revelation that underscores ongoing vulnerabilities in Nigeria’s banking sector, Access Bank Plc, one of the country’s foremost financial institutions, has disclosed that it lost a staggering N1.69 billion to fraud in 2024.

The details emerged from the bank’s Full Year 2024 Financial Report, released on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, and made available to SocietyGists.

According to the report, the bank recorded 11,410 successful fraud cases involving N3.5 billion in 2024, a sharp rise from 6,634 cases involving N8.61 billion in 2023. However, the actual loss was pared down to N1.69 billion, a significant improvement compared to N6.15 billion lost in 2023.

“This report represents the fraud and forgery incidents that occurred during the year. It is a summation of attempted and successful fraud incidents. The actual loss that was incurred by the Bank for the year is N1.69bn (December 2023: N6.15bn),” the report stated.

In addition, 1,846 failed attempts involving N149.3 million were recorded in 2024, down from 6,405 failed cases involving N1.69 billion in 2023. While the decline in actual loss is commendable, the persistently high number of incidents raises critical questions about Access Bank’s internal controls, cybersecurity protocols, and risk management infrastructure.

Regulatory Fines: Over N1.2 Billion in Penalties

Making matters worse, Access Holdings, the parent company of Access Bank, was slammed with a wave of regulatory sanctions amounting to N1.2 billion in fines in 2024 alone. These were issued by top financial regulatory bodies including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The breakdown of these penalties is damning:

• N300 million – Wrong warehousing of government agency funds (April 2024)
• N157.5 million – Violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations
• N100.6 million – Unauthorized sale of securities
• N69 million – Failure to report cyber incidents
• N5 million – Contravention of mystery shopping regulations (confiscated naira notes)
• N5 million – Breach of targeted financial sanctions screening
• N2 million – Wrong renewal of debit cards (consumer protection violation)
• N561 million – Additional AML-related breaches

The N69 million penalty relating to cyber incident reporting failures suggests a direct link to the fraudulent activities that contributed to the N1.69 billion loss.

This development calls into question not just Access Bank’s internal governance but the wider structural fragility within Nigeria’s banking system. With fraud incidents surging and regulatory breaches recurring, the confidence of customers, stakeholders, and investors may be shaken.

Access Bank has yet to release a public statement on the impact of these losses and fines on its 2025 outlook, and industry watchers will be keeping a close eye on how the institution intends to rebuild trust, tighten security, and address these critical lapses.