Lagos — United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has taken a major step to secure all electronic banking transactions in the bank and protect its customers against cyber crimes and other forms of e-banking threats. To this end the bank has commissioned a state-of-the-art Security Operations Centre (SOC) & Forensic Lab that provides all round security monitoring for all electronic banking transactions; the first of its kind for a bank in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa.

The SOC empowers the bank to securely deliver electronic banking services to its esteemed customers, effectively manage all form of information security threats and provide a robust protection to its systems, network and electronic banking channels.

Speaking at the commissioning of the centre in Lagos, the Deputy Director, Banking Supervision, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Ibedu Onyebuchi commended UBA for the initiative and stated that the centre is an important milestone in the industry that must be emulated by other banks because of the global threats to electronic banking.

"UBA has taken a bold step in securing its customers, knowing that banking cannot be practiced without adequate control and sound risk management systems" he enthused.

Group Managing Director/CEO, UBA Plc, Mr. Phillips Oduoza said UBA, being a leading bank in the deployment of electronic banking channels, made a deliberate decision to invest in a robust information security infrastructure, processes and skilled personnel as an effective way to manage information security threats.

Oduoza maintained that any serious banking institution that wants to succeed in this digital age cannot afford to ignore information security as any major compromise of bank's system and network has potentials for colossal damage.

"We partnered with top Information Security Organization that worked with the bank to upgrade our information security infrastructure in Nigeria and 18 African countries where we have presence. The drive towards cashless economy and migration of customers from banking halls to channels, demands that we put in place systems and processes that would protect our customers and the bank hence the establishment of this centre", he stated.

Group Head, IT Risk Management, Sam Okenye, emphasized that the deployment of fraud detection solution in the SOC and the twenty four hours, seven days a week monitoring would help guard against fraud and also protect customers against e-channel fraud.

Okenye further revealed that the bank is already reaping the benefit of the investment going by the number of blocked cyber attacks, Phishing sites, shutdown, blocked attempted card fraud and the protection against systems/network intrusion. "With our current Security Infrastructure, we can know what is happening in our systems and network real-time. We can detect the sources of blocked attacks and also timely uncover any weakness in our network and systems for appropriate response," he stated.

UBA is a leading Pan African financial services Group with presence in 19 African countries, New York, London and Paris. Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, the Group provides universal banking services to diverse customer groups across Africa//end