Read time: 3 minutes

Barclays Bank Zambia hit by ATM fraud

By , ITWeb’s Zambian correspondent.
Zambia , 26 Mar 2013

Barclays Bank Zambia hit by ATM fraud

Barclays Bank Zambia is reportedly investigating its Information Technology (IT) department workers after unknown people allegedly tampered with the bank’s automatic teller machine (ATM) control system and fraudulently withdrew large sums of money.

The bank suspects the fraud occurred in one of its branches in Kabwe and was an in-house job that aided by IT department workers.

Barclays Bank Zambia has since disabled all Visa cards of account holders with the branch. The bank has further asked the account holders to apply for new Visa cards.

The suspected tampering of the ATM control system reportedly took place on Friday last week when salaries of civil servants had just been deposited into their accounts. However, it’s not clear yet as to how much money was fraudulently withdrawn.

A number of the bank’s depositors who went to withdraw their money and salaries said they were inconvenienced by the development as the majority of them had no transport money to go back to their homes.

They also complained that the bank asked them to apply for new cards, but that the majority of them had left their required identity cards at home.

Barclays Bank has not yet responded to questions posed by ITWeb Africa about the alleged fraud.

Daily newsletter