It said the increase is despite the technological and security measures deployed to make ATMs safer.

11% increase in ATM attacks

According to the Sabric annual crime stats for 2021, there was an 11% increase in ATM attacks last year and a 17% increase in losses.

It added that incidents where explosives were used also increased, whereas the number of angle-grinder incidents decreased from 47 in 2020, to 42 incidents in 2021.

CEO of Sabric, Nischal Mewalall, said digital banking products are far safer than in-person banking, and they enable people to transact from anywhere safely.

But criminals have adjusted their social engineering tactics to leverage your data from social media and data leaks, making their efforts to manipulate customers difficult to spot.

He said banking on the app, online and over the telephone are the safest ways and exceed all other transaction channels in South Africa. Between 2020 and 2021, digital banking fraud incidents decreased. He said that the biggest decline in fraud incidents occurred in mobile banking fraud.

Online shopping unsafe

Mewalall also warned of online shopping being unsafe because of fake websites being used to defraud or harvest people’s credit card data.

He said, in some instances, scammers have even delivered inferior products to create the impression that the website is legitimate.

We are making inroads in combatting banking and financial crime in South Africa. We have trained more than 900 SAPS and National Prosecuting Authority personnel on banking products and related evidence. Working closely with the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, we have also established task teams across provinces to aggressively address the prioritised banking crime threats.

With regard to card fraud in 2021, Mewalall said card-not-present (CNP) fraud, with a debit card, contributed to 55,3% of all card fraud.

CNP fraud increased by 31,5% when compared to 2020 and remains a concern, as transactions with online merchants have increased.

He said that although the industry recorded a decrease in associated robbery incidents in 2021, branch-before-deposit incidents increased by 56% with financial losses.

The Citizen