‘Report digital money fraud’

The Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) has said people need to be empowered to report to relevant authorities every move that is suspected to be digital money fraud.

This comes as the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) said about K120 million is stolen monthly from Malawians through mobile money transfer.

In an interview FIA Director General Jean Priminta said the authority is worried with the level at which people are losing their money digitally.

She said this is happening as most people are not aware of how are fraudsters using digital money platforms.

“We have received so many queries where people have been duped via digital Money platforms. This is why as the nation we need to intensify on awareness campaigns of digital money transactions.

“It is through the right information where people can be able to guard themselves against being duped through the use of digital money platforms,” Priminta said.

Parliamentary Committee on Media and Communication Chairperson Susan Dossi said it was sad that the country continues to register increased cases of digital money frauds.

She said the committee wanted to understand why the nation is failing to deal with the vice.

“Many are the times when we hear that people have been duped through their phones. People have complained receiving messages about winning money which end up being fraudulent.

“This is the time to come together and strategize on how best we can deal with vice. We all know how the world is migrating from the use of cash to digital,”Dossi said.

A report by RBM shows that the number of mobile banking subscribers rose by 7.9 percent in the first quarter of 2020 to 904,737 which also saw the volume and value of mobile banking transactions rising by 18.5 percent and 32.7 percent to 8.4 million and K125.1 billion, respectively.

The report further shows that non-bank mobile money service subscribers grew by 16.9 percent to 7.2 million.