New data from SABRIC serves as a warning over the rampant surge in digital banking fraud, which has cost South Africans R2.4 billion.
South Africans lost R2.4 billion to digital banking crime in 2025, with the losses spread across more than 110,000 reported incidents.
This is according to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre’s (SABRIC) 2025 Annual Crime Statistics Report.
The figure showed a sharp increase in financial losses from digital banking crime as criminals increasingly exploit technology, customer trust, and familiar banking processes to steal money.
SABRIC said reported client claim amounts more than doubled from R1.09 billion in 2023 to R2.4 billion in 2025. This was also a 29.2% increase from the approximately R1.9 billion recorded in 2024.
Based on the 110,074 incidents reported in 2025, the average loss amounted to about R21,865 per incident.
The report highlighted the changing nature of banking crime and the need for greater vigilance, collaboration, and investment in prevention and disruption.
“Digital Banking Crime remained one of the most significant reported financial crime risks in 2025,” SABRIC said.
Banking apps accounted for about 89% of reported digital banking crime cases and 70.5% of the total client claim amount.
Internet banking accounted for fewer than 9% of cases but 28.6% of the claim value, showing that relatively few incidents can still result in substantial losses.
Mobile banking accounted for fewer than 3% of cases and less than 1% of the claim amount, but remained a concern due to its association with SIM-swap fraud.
SABRIC said most digital banking crime was driven by social engineering and the manipulation or compromise of customers, rather than criminals directly attacking banking systems.
Criminals use impersonation, voice phishing, remote-access software, false payment instructions and other techniques to persuade victims to disclose confidential information, approve transactions or provide access to their accounts.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is also making these scams harder to identify, with criminals able to produce more convincing messages, images, voices and videos.
Fraud involving vehicle asset finance applications also increased significantly during 2025. Reported fraudulent applications rose by 41%, while the value of fraudulent applications detected and declined increased by 43.8%.
Fraudulent home and mortgage loan applications increased by 3.4%, although potential losses declined by 12.3%.
Unsecured lending fraud also recorded a substantial improvement, with reported fraudulent applications involving current accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and personal loans falling by 34%.
Despite this decline, SABRIC warned that mule accounts, synthetic identities, first-party misrepresentation and AI-assisted document manipulation remained major risks.
Card fraud also continued to impose a significant financial cost. Gross fraud losses on South African-issued credit and debit cards increased by 18% in 2025.
Card-not-present fraud remained the largest contributor to losses, although losses in this category declined for both credit and debit cards.
Physical banking crime showed a more mixed picture. ATM attacks, bank branch burglaries and bank branch robberies declined, while associated robberies increased. Cash losses linked to these robberies nevertheless decreased.
SABRIC said customers should remain particularly alert when withdrawing cash, as criminals continue to target people leaving ATMs and use distraction techniques to steal money or valuables.
The banking industry has also increased efforts to disrupt fraud through the Banking Industry Anti-Scam Centre (BIASC), established by participating banks through SABRIC.
The centre has helped improve information sharing, case escalation and the speed at which suspicious funds can be traced and preserved before being moved through multiple accounts, cash withdrawals, gaming platforms or crypto-asset channels.
SABRIC said the capability still needs greater scale, coverage and automation to materially reduce overall industry losses.
For consumers, the warning signs include unexpected calls or messages creating urgency, requests for PINs or one-time passwords, instructions to move money to a “safe account”, requests to install remote-access software and unexplained SIM-swap notifications.
“Customers should pause before acting, independently verify unusual requests through official channels, protect their PINs, passwords and one-time passwords,” SABRIC said.
Anyone who unexpectedly loses mobile network service should contact both their bank and mobile network provider immediately, while suspicious transactions and criminal incidents should be reported without delay.
