• Mobile money fraud is an issue that has not been adequately looked into by regulators.
• If nothing is done to address mobile money fraud, the public may lose confidence in the digital financial services.
• This may erode gains that have been made with regards to financial inclusion.

Mobile Money Business Association of Zambia has called on authorities to up their game and put systems in place that will ensure that consumers are adequately protected from fraud.
Speaking in an interview with Money FM News, Association President Pamfred Hasweeka said mobile money fraud is an issue that has not been adequately looked into by regulators such as Bank of Zambia.
Mr. Hasweeka noted that if nothing is done to address mobile money fraud, the public may lose confidence in the digital financial services and this may erode gains that have been made with regards to financial inclusion.
“With regards to internal fraud, this is an issue that we feel has not really been adequately looked into by the regulators such as Bank of Zambia. We have had cases where agent commissions are not disbursed according to expectations.”
“So I think Bank of Zambia need to up the game in terms of addressing internal fraud, this is not something they should take for granted and assume there is compliance among digital financial service providers. When it comes to crime, all areas need to be adequately addressed. The threat that we may now run into is that the public may lose confidence in these digital financial services and this may erode or roll back the gains that we have seen as far as financial inclusion is concerned,” Mr. Hasweeka stated.
He however said it is gratifying that Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) and Bank of Zambia launched the collaborative framework for oversight of digital financial services in 2022 that will bring all key players together and spell out how mobile money fraud will be handled.
“We are glad that last year ZICTA and Bank of Zambia launched the collaborative framework for oversight of digital financial services that will bring all key players together in as far as mitigating some of these issues is concerned. And we are glad that ZICTA invited our association to be part of the consumer safety working group. We will operate as a proxy for consumers and be able to advocate for policies including security needed to safeguard consumers.”
“And the issue of compensating consumers we are not even aware because access to information is critical. Digital financial services is relatively a new concept but Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) needs to up the game, adapt and put systems in place that will ensure that consumers are adequately protected because we feel they are not doing much,” he noted.
Recently, Drug Enforcement Commission arrested and jointly charged a Revenue Assurance Officer and Software Developer for fraudulently gaining access to a known mobile network operator’s mobile money application and three merchant accounts and stole funds amounting to K4, 875,142.

Meanwhile, ZICTA has so far deactivated 140, 000 sim cards that were being used to send scam messages to mobile money users the launch of a short code on 8th October 2022.