The International Bank for Trade and Industry of Gabon BICIG announced on May 18 that it had suffered fraudulent withdrawals by international payment cards, amounting to 113 million CFA francs. The banking firm has assured that it will reimburse the customers who were victims of this cyber attack.
The Bank for Trade and Industry in Gabon BICIG has announced on May 18 that it had faced fraudulent international card payments.
“Our technical teams, in collaboration with our electronic payment partner and the VISA group, were able to identify the cards and the fraudulent transactions concerned in order to definitively contain the incident,” BICIG informed by press release. According to an indiscretion within BICIG, the fraud started on May 6, before being stopped eight days later, after identification following complaints from certain customers.
According to the first elements of the internal investigation, the fraud was carried out from Mexico and involved 2,000 cards and 8,000 transactions, for a total amount of 200 million CFA francs. “1,200 customers were debited for 113 million from their Bicig accounts. The 800 others were not debited, the Bicig having been able to suspend since May 14 the fraudulent operations before their recognition “, a source of the bank revealed.
Good news for customers, the bank has promised that it will “fully reimburse amounts as of Monday, May 18, 2020”. And to prevent other such attacks, BICIG has taken certain steps. In particular, the bank blocked the possibility of carrying out transactions with the magnetic stripe of the cards causing the fraud. Only operations from the card chip are now authorized. Likewise, BICIG has invited its customers to “respect the security rules” and to exercise extra vigilance when using their payment cards. The Ivorian group Atlantic Financial Group Central & East Africa (AFG C&EA) will become the majority shareholder of BICIG, by buying the 47.04% of the shares of the bank held by the Gabonese strategic investment fund (FGIS) as well as those of the Gabonese State (5%).
