KBA launches safety and awareness campaign dubbed ‘Kaa Chonjo’

The Kenya Bankers Association on May 3, 2019 launched the bi-annual Safety Awareness Campaign: Kaa Chonjo! The initiative was rolled out in partnership with VISA, Mastercard, Retail Trade Association of Kenya (RETRAK), PesaLink, and Consumer Grassroots Association (CGA). 

The campaign will come on the back of emerging safety concerns, including social engineering, cyber-security and data protection. The initiative will provide a platform for stakeholders to discuss ways of combating the issues at a time when technology has become a central facilitator of effective service delivery and making payments across banking channels. 

Thanks to innovation, many people are now shifting to cashless payments, making use of card, mobile money and online banking services. The main drivers of this trend include convenience and safety from the dangers of moving around with wads of cash. Adapting to this emerging dynamic, retailers are increasingly embracing a wide variety of payment options for customers. 

As a result, cashless transactions are increasingly becoming popular, with retailers availing card, mobile and online payment options for their customers. Financial service providers have also continued to tap into technology to leverage on the new customer preferences, necessitating collaborations with retailers in streamlining payment services.  This is because it is no longer tenable for financial institutions to rely on one channel in offering customers services. 

Despite the significant success that has been achieved in cashless payments, fraud is one of the threats affecting the use of technology in the financial and retail industries. In the retail industry, consumers are often targeted by fraudsters that use a wide range of tricks to steal their personal information with the intention of making unauthorizsed payments online, and via mobile money services through such techniques as SIM swapping. And this is not a challenge confined to Kenya or Africa. 

Globally, it is now becoming increasingly clear that financial fraud is a challenge that transcends geographical barriers. In 2018, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed that, compared to past years, fraud has now hit an all-time high across the world, with 49 percent of global organisations reporting having experienced economic crime in the past decade. 

Based on reported cases of fraud, most fraudsters exploit system vulnerabilities and low levels of awareness among consumers. This calls for more concerted efforts towards enlightening consumers on the schemes fraudsters use to defraud them. It is, however, encouraging that retailers and financial institutions are recognising this gap and are creating awareness initiatives to empower consumers. 

While this is a move in the right direction, more efforts need to be made in creating awareness. The evolving nature of fraud requires continuous public education and empowerment of financial institutions’ staff with knowledge on emerging fraud trends and mitigations. 

One such trends is social engineering. This is defined as the unauthorised acquisition of sensitive information or inappropriate access privileges by a potential threat source, based on the building of an inappropriate trust relationship with a legitimate user of an ICT system. The objective is to trick someone through deception into providing valuable information or access to that information. 

Social engineering is a highly effective ploy used by intruders as a preliminary hacking technique. It is based on the premise that people are usually the weakest link in the ICT security chain and Social Engineering is still the most effective method of getting around security controls. It is also gathering pace in mobile money services, where fraudsters are persuaded to give away personal information. 

Early this year, Central Bank of Kenya Governor Dr. Patrick Njoroge noted that cases of ICT-related frauds had   increased in recent years, calling on banks to tighten their systems. The governor said mitigation of such risks is important for business continuity, as well as, promoting the development of sound financial systems and risk management frameworks.