S Africans lost R3.3 billion to financial crime in 2023: SABRIC – SABC News [Video]

The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) says there has been a significant spike in online shopping scams during the holiday season.

In 2023, South Africans lost almost R3.3 billion due to financial crime with fraudulent banking applications, accounting for 60 percent of digital banking crimes.

Thabani Ndwandwe, is the Chief Risk Officer at Standard Bank, “One of the things we’ve seen, we’ve seen a lot of data leaks in the industry, right across different suppliers. We’ve seen big retailers having data breaches and so they access that data which is data that is very crucial when actually talking to customers. Also, they actually phone customers and they talk to customers. And most customers give away a lot of critical information in the conversation they have with the scammers and that is how they scam the customers.”

Meanwhile, with the festive season upon us, South Africans are already in a celebratory mood.

However, while families and friends …