00:00 The Central Bank of TNT is the regulator for banks and other financial institutions like
00:07 credit unions and insurance companies. Between the period 2020 and 2023, CBTT's Deputy Director
00:14 of Financial Institutions, Michel-Francis Panto, says six incidents of fraud leading
00:20 to a material breach of customer information were reported by commercial banks, comprising
00:25 cheque fraud, withdrawals by customers in excess of deposits, and employee fraud using
00:31 false identification, documents and signatures.
00:34 Insurance companies also provided 52 notifications of financial fraud, and that was primarily
00:41 involving their sales reps and agents for that period, for things like non-remittance
00:46 of insurance premiums, dishonored cheques, and fraudulent certificates and documents.
00:52 The CBTT says among these categories, cheque fraud is more prevalent. As for cybersecurity
00:58 in relation to credit and debit cards for the same period,
01:01 "Just about 20,000 cards were impacted or compromised over the period."
01:06 But the CBTT says with over 850,000 debit cards and 250,000 credit cards in issue, it
01:13 accounts for about 2%. CBTT states that the commercial banks have a high level of cybersecurity
01:20 procedures in place compared to other financial institutions, and it notes that these are
01:25 always changing due to the ever-evolving challenges.
01:29 As it pertains to skimming, the central bank highlights that the Europay MasterCard Visa
01:35 or EMV technology is working.
01:37 "So that reduced the incidence of skimming on cards, right? But what we're seeing increasing
01:43 now based on the data that we received is that card not present, transaction fraud is
01:48 increasing. So things doing like when you do online payments and you give out your numbers
01:55 and that type of fraud, that is increasing."
01:58 Joint Select Committee member Jayanti Lutchmedial reveals that she was skimmed in 2018.
02:03 "I went to bed that night and woke up in the morning and found $20,000 withdrawn from my
02:07 bank account at an ATM in Woodbrook while I was asleep in San Fernando and at a casino."
02:14 She says the police gave her a report to take to her financial institution, and the financial
02:19 institution refunded the money. But the matter was never investigated further.
02:24 According to the fraud squad, these cases often lead to dead ends, especially when the
02:29 perpetrator cannot be identified or when there's the falsifying of identification and accounts
02:34 electronically.
02:35 "So we are way behind legislatively in properly bringing these matters to any form of fruition."
02:46 While stakeholders have placed on the GSE's record that they would welcome and are willing
02:50 to assist with creating new legislation, GSE member and attorney-at-law Keith Scotland
02:55 is of the view that the hands of the authorities are not tied with the pieces of legislation
03:00 that exist, like the Data Protection Act, the Electronic Transaction Act, the Central
03:05 Bank Act, the Electronic Transfer of Crime Act and the Common Law.
03:10 "Until new legislation is proclaimed, you may find that there is and there are some
03:17 avenues which perpetrators even now can be charged."
03:21 Meanwhile, the CBTT says it is working with the International Monetary Fund on training
03:26 for staff in order to start conducting site visits at financial institutions in order
03:31 to verify their cybersecurity and anti-fraud mechanisms.
03:36 The Joint Select Committee was held to examine the anti-fraud and customer protection systems
03:41 in the financial services sector.
03:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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