BANKING & PAYMENT TECHNOLOGIES WEST AFRICA, 2009: Call for public-private partnership to fight bank robberies in Nigeria

Speaking at this year’s Banking & Payment Technologies Conference at the Muson Centre, Lagos, Nigeria last week, Stephan Botha, CEO of Integrated Cash Management Services (ICMS), called on the banks and government to wo rk together to mount a concerted campaign to fight the country’s growing plague of bank and cash-in-transit robberies. ICMS is a joint venture company in the XL Management group, a leading outsourcing supplier to the banking industry.

Botha presented alarming statistics which point to the urgent need for combined action to fight back:

• Bank raids increased from 65 in 2007 to 133 in 2008, with related fatalities increasing from 40 to 240.
• Attacks on cash-in-transit vehicles increased from 9 in 2007 to 53 in 2008, with related fatalities climbing from 13 to 171.
• The estimated total of cash stolen in these attacks in 2008 was N15.9bn

“This dramatic upward trend in attacks and fatalities makes it urgent for the industry to develop effective strategies to reduce vulnerabilities and opportunities,” said Botha. He proposed the establishment of an integrated cash supply chain for the banking industry to manage cost and risk. This needs a comprehensive multi-bank end-to-end industry approach.

A public/private partnership approach could proactively manage risk by setting minimum standards for the total cash industry, with integrated software and technology to manage and support the processes. By combining forces, the banks and government could combine intelligence, analyse trends and agree on combined action. All banks should participate in the partnership on an equal basis, and the Central Bank’s participation would be essential.

The partnership should focus on establishing a low-risk environment by moving cash out of bank branches to multi-bank cash centres designed to manage bulk cash, thus reducing the risk of attacks on bank branches. The cash centres would be high-security buildings built to international standards for the holding and sorting of cash and onward transport. Through economies of scale high standards of security can be established while at the same time driving down costs for individual banks.

By working together in this partnership the banking industry in Nigeria can move from its current reactive approach to robberies to being far more proactive, with an independent secretariat acting as honest broker to centralize information, manage shared control rooms, integrate software and systems across the banks, establish a non-competitive centralised intelligence capability, with a database to collate and share information, analyse and develop proactive strategies.

“With foreknowledge we can move from reactive to proactive mode, develop counter-strategies based on intelligence reports and mount joint operations to keep the upper hand,” said Botha.