CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Even since the inception of the first successful indigenous bank in Sierra Leone, the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank of Sierra Leone established on February 15th 1973. The West African Currency Board and others subsequently established in the country  during the period from  1912 to 1963 when the Central bank of Sierra Leone was established to regulate  and control the activities of commercial banks in the country till present day, prand have remarried a permanent feature in our banking industry.

During the free banking era (between 1912 and 1963) there was no form of banking act or ordinance to regulate the stabilities shipment and operation of commercial bank. There are as it is presently supervised. Many banks were registered. Some of did not open their doors for  business ever for a day while some simply collected customers deposits and varnished. This had resulted to the deprivation of our economy an as a whole the much needs fund for development and  depriving individual the hard earned funds, this also brought about loss of faith trust on the commercial banks by Sierra Leoneans and the subsequent under developed banking habit in the country

However, with the introduction of the first banking ordinance, and the central bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) ordinance to regulate and control the activities of commercial banking in the country fraud in commercial banks have rather increased in size, and method used by fraudster acquires greater  sophistication day by day. Presently with the introduction of modern banking procedures ie improved communication system, automatic electronic gadgets and computers networks into our banking system coupled with various precautionary measures taken by banks. To prevent fraud in the banks fraud have rather taken unclear dimension and the six and form involved increase in a geometric progression. Other Amptiam in his articles obstacle o growth of baking industry saw that it was discovered during investigation that banks now take extra precaution before clearing a cheque because of rampant incident of fraud and forgeries the form of fraud has placed banks loss on the average of Le1m per each working day of the year in Sierra Leone Asimi kola in his own article “The cash economy phenomenon” also observed that fraud has become sophisticated as to make forget cheque book good the owner to confirm it as his own signature recently in the bid curb the grand fraud, BSL issued a directive to banks to increase their capital base to Le85B billion in 2019 - 2020. The minimum paid up capital for bank is Le35B billion for commercial bank. This directive come up after several bank has been discovered to have defrauded it is customers mostly foreign investors. In this required .

Bankers in a bid to reduce the size and rapid occurrence of fraud in their bank now take adequate precautionary measure before clearing cheques drawn their customers accounts. These precautionary measures bring into  focus another problem facing commercial banks,. The problem of time wastage in the banking hall. Ashimi Kola in his article also said that customer waits a minimum of about two hours in banking hall  of Sierra Leone banks to cash their money. This is one of the  most legitimate criticisms of the quality of  bank services. The checking process is long and by the time a cheque is released to cashier for payment, the customer is frustrated and perhaps Rast asleep among feering crowd. This calls for an overhaul of the checking and control system. E above being the general situation of things in commercial banking fraud is there fore number one enemy to all concerned with growth and development of banks., the intention of this research work therefore aimed at identification of the fraud on Sierra Leonen economy in general and on Vista Bank Sierra Leone   and recommend more functional measure that will help in the prevention and to reduction of fraud in commercial bank in Sierra Leone