Access Bank’s electronic fraud losses jump twentyfold as group skips interim dividend

Access Bank’s losses to electronic and USSD fraud rose more than twentyfold in the first half of 2026, its half-year report shows. Its parent company, Access Holdings Plc, also paid shareholders no interim dividend.

The bank lost N431.7 million to electronic and USSD fraud in the six months to June, up from N20.9 million in the same period of 2025. That is about 21 times higher.

The rise came even though such incidents fell. The bank recorded 1,843 successful electronic and USSD fraud cases, down from 3,757 a year earlier. The fraudsters took bigger sums each time, however: the amount involved rose to N831.8 million from N566 million. The bank failed to recover more than half of it, against about 4 per cent a year earlier.

USSD codes let customers move money from basic mobile phones without internet access. That makes them popular, especially outside big cities, and a common target for fraudsters who steal SIM cards or trick customers into revealing PINs.

Overall, the bank’s fraud losses fell. It lost N877 million to all types of fraud in the half-year, down from N1.64 billion, as losses from forged instruments, fraudulent withdrawals and cash theft dropped. But electronic and USSD fraud now accounts for nearly half of all its fraud losses.

Fraudulent transfers and withdrawals, including the reactivation of dormant accounts, cost the bank a further N413.7 million.

Access Bank also logged 668,368 customer complaints in the six months, involving claims of N80.6 billion.

No interim dividend

Shareholders received no interim payout. “The Board did not propose any interim dividend for the period ended 30 June 2026,” the report said. The group also paid none in 2025.

That is despite higher profits. In separate results for the nine months to September, released on Monday together with the half-year report, Access Holdings posted an after-tax profit of N474.2 billion, up 5.9 per cent. The rise was driven largely by a 73 per cent fall in provisions for bad loans.

Yet signs of strain are growing in the loan book. Impaired loans rose to N579.1 billion at the end of June from N368.2 billion, lifting the bad-loan ratio to 3.34 per cent from 2.68 per cent.

The group’s shares traded at N28.30 on Monday. That values it at about N1.54 trillion, less than 40 per cent of the N4.07 trillion in equity attributable to its shareholders.

The group is still expanding abroad. In February its UK subsidiary bought Zempler Bank, a British digital bank, for £36.7 million. Its purchase of National Bank of Kenya, announced in May 2025, is still awaiting final approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria.