BML: No involvement of staff in “disappearance” of money from accounts

Bank of Maldives (BML), on Wednesday, has assured that there is no involvement of its staff in cases where money has been deducted from accounts with the bank unbeknownst to the holder.

Parliament’s State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Committee summoned officials from the bank, Maldives Monetary Authority and Maldives Correctional Services to be questioned on the extent of implementation of the recommendations made by the Committee in a 2023 report concerning the issue.

Speaking at the Committee meeting on Wednesday, BML’s Director of Retail and SME Banking Moosa Nimal said there has been no indication of participation from the bank’s staff in the investigation conducted by relevant authorities into the disappearance of money from accounts.

He further detailed that 1,400 scam cases were lodged with the bank this year alone, of which 700 were reported in the second quarter. However, these cases, as per Nimal, involved just few pertaining to compromised internet banking or mobile banking logins.

Nimal provided statistics on scam cases involving loss of money. In this regard, he said 39 percent of the cases involving loss of money were the result of the account holders being scammed into transferring money by perpetrators who impersonated their family members via calls or hacking a family member’s Viber account.

35 percent of the cases involved transfers to purchase products from various forums and marketplaces that has gone undelivered and 20 percent of the cases involved transfers to purchase foreign currently at sales conducted via Viber and Telegram.

“Only six percent cases if only considering the second quarter and 10 percent cases if considering the whole year pertained to compromised internet banking or app’s account login,” he stressed.

Nimal said it has been guaranteed that there was no issue with any of the bank’s security systems in such cases. He added that bank had introduced two-factor authentication and eliminated the use of e-mail as part of strengthening security which has brought BML’s internet banking login security up to par with international standards.

“In consideration of all these factors, we are very sure these cases are not a result of involvement from our staff,” he reiterated

Many cases of “disappearance” of money of BML accounts have been raised by the public via social media and other means. They have also alleged the participation of the bank’s staff in these cases.