₦685 Million Fraud Loss Forces Wema Bank To Enhance Security With Facial Recognition Tech

₦685 million fraud loss has forced Wema Bank to enhance security with facial recognition tech.

 

NewsOnline Nigeria reports that Wema Bank, a Nigerian bank, has partnered with Daon, an international digital identity trust company, to introduce facial recognition technology to improve platform security, following a number of attempts to reduce fraud on the platform.

 

According to a statement, the bank has adopted the Daon xProof and (xAuth/xFace) applications on the Daon IdentityX® platform to provide digital identity verification and authentication on the banking app.

 

This development, jointly executed by Daon and its regional partner Ouranos Technologies, will help bank customers access everyday banking transactions via several engagement channels, such as taking a selfie. This saves time while also ensuring the highest level of security via advanced liveness detection and other presentation attack protections.

 

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By integrating the solutions through the Daon innovation, Identity Continuity, the bank can now perform both onboarding and authentication across multiple channels, all from a single platform.

 

Wema Bank, like several other Nigerian banks, has been involved in fraudulent activities on its platform in recent years. In April 2024, NewsOnline Nigeria reported that the bank lost ₦685 million ($594,943) due to fraud and forgery in 2023 through its digital and collection/payment channels, including third-party platforms.

 

This prompted the bank to expand its fraud monitoring team in its digital compliance department and launch an anti-fraud campaign to protect customers from fraudulent activities.

 

In the same month, the bank removed and suspended up to seven fintech partners from its payment gateway platform due to fraudulent activity.

Clive Bourke, President of EMEA and APAC at Daon, stated, “Implementing Daon’s suite of identity verification and authentication solutions in the Wema Bank app will provide their customers with a more efficient and reliable user experience, all while increasing the security of their data.”

 

He stated that identity fraud is a major source of financial loss in the banking sector, so defending against it is critical.

 

Olusegun Adeniyi, Chief Digital Officer at Wema Bank, buttressed that the development will keep the bank’s mission to offer seamless access to a wider portfolio of financial services.