My previous post about Equity Bank talked about the bank firing about 200 employees after the loss or misappropriation of 1.5 billion shillings. There were then further reports that the number of staff to be fired is about 1,200, either in addition to the earlier 200, or in total. Either way, that is close to 10% of the bank’s staff.
Now, this is a bank, and a big bank at that. This means that it is expected that it uses significant technology and systems to make sure things run smoothly, since the bank handles serious amounts of money.
In addition to technology, a bank will usually have skilled professionals preventing and detecting fraud and anomalies in its operations. These would be staff both from the fields of Finance and IT. I did a few searches on LinkedIn and found that, as expected, the bank has anti-fraud staff, Certified Information Security Auditors, Certified Information Security Managers and other information security certification holders.
And yet, KES. 1.5b was pilfered under their collective watch. Granted, it is reported that it is the internal audit staff who detected the fraud, but this was KES. 1.5b later.
Some people claimed that the money was lost by staff colluding with non-staff and granting them unsecured loans, for a percentage of the funds. Someone said that the staff who were unwilling to play along got removed.
The question of hiring practices arises again. What practices are these that result in nearly 10% of the staff hired engaging in ethically questionable practices? Is this simply part of a bigger problem that extends beyond Equity Bank? Are other banks experiencing similar misappropriation, only that we have not heard about it? Is the problem that so many of the general population are unethical so any hiring process will naturally result in such statistics? Are other industries also undergoing the same?
Another news report said that an insurance company had used AI to detect and prevent fraudulent claims worth about KES. 400m. Three things are of interest.
One, it is good that the firm successfully employed technology so effectively.
Two, it is rather shocking, at least to external observers, that there were attempts to fraudulently obtain sums amounting to a whole 400m.
Three, if AI was used to stop the fraud of 400m, then what has been happening before? How much has been taken without detection?
Lesson:
I think the usual hiring process and the usual work activities are not working quite as well as we may have believed.