SABRIC REPORT
‘It is only through sustainable and strategic
partnerships with key stakeholders that we
will be able to continue making a positive
impact.’
launch of the Carrying Cash Safely Campaign in 2013, Phiyega said,
‘As the SAPS, we have a firm belief that the flourishing partnership
with SABRIC, which we actively support, is bound to assist us in
many ways, and has assisted us in that way actively.’ In addition,
SABRIC’s Violent Crime office, together with the banking industry’s
investigators, has partnered with the SAPS task team responsible for
investigating ATM attacks in Gauteng. This task team was recognised
as the best SAPS detective unit in 2012.
These partnerships have yielded positive results as bank crimes and
ATM bombings are showing significant downward trends.
Another successful collaborative project to note is with the
Department of Home Affairs online fingerprint-verification project.
SABRIC has partnered with the department to roll out an online
solution, which enables the banks to verify the identity of their
customers against the data presented by DHA. Several South African
banks have made good progress towards institutionalising this crimecombating measure in their banking halls.
In terms of Commercial Crimes, the arrest and prosecution of
several notorious commercial crime perpetrators resulted in sentences
ranging from 10-15 years. This is clear indication of the success of
this model. It is through the collaborative approach that between 2007
and 2013, 177 ATM-mounted skimming devices were recovered by the
banking industry and law enforcement.
SABRIC fights crime by gathering incident data from the banks
and CITs to identify patterns, trends, risk areas and emerging threats
to support the development of the banks’ internal crime and risk
management strategies. It is through this strategy that SABRIC has
been able to identify risks and warn customers about banking crimes.
As criminals explore new methods to rob banking customers, to
counter these methods SABRIC identifies and alerts the public to
safety measures which make it increasingly difficult for criminals to
perpetrate their crimes.
For example, when phishing first surfaced, it was easy for the banks
to detect phishing e-mails due to their shoddy wording. But criminals
have since progressed and have come up with new, sophisticated
scams that work on the emotions of the targeted recipients. According
to Pillay, criminals use methods such as social engineering to get
banking customers to unknowingly part with their money. ‘Social
engineering tactics have been with us for a while, but the perpetrators
are constantly changing the approach of their communications, and
what makes it complex for customers is that these communications
are generally built on legitimate banking business processes’,
says Pillay.
SABRIC’s greatest challenge lies in the fact that while the
industry continues to roll out innovative technologies to fight crime,
criminals are constantly working to counteract these. Unfortunately,
technological advances also create opportunities for criminals and
the exploitation of technology is often the basis of commercial and
some violent bank crimes. Our country has the characteristics of both
a developing and an advanced economy, which means that criminals
are quite resourceful and use a variety of methods to commit bank
crimes.
To prevent card fraud, the industry has deployed diverse measures.
These include the improvement of internal systems and processes
within the banks. Crime trends are followed closely and adjustments
to monitoring systems are made to