Abstract

Financial fraud is a major threat to institutions in Sierra Leone especially the Banking institutions, and this problem is expected to grow if measures are not installed to preventing the spade of fraudulent activities in institutions. Billions of leones are lost on a yearly basis through fraudulent activities in financial institutions according to the financial intellengence units, and these acts have derailed the profitability propensity of these Banks. The consequences of frauds on an institution are so adverse and enormous, and they could derail the progress of such institutions, and fundamentally undermine the objectives, goals and targets of such institutions. A liberal, condusive and competitive market can never be achieved, if the issues around fraud are not managed or prevented either on the side of the financial institutions, or the customers or clients of those institutions. I used a unique dataset to examine the causes and consequences of financial fraud in Banking institution in Sierra leone, using Eco Bank Sierra Leone Limited as a case. First, i find that decreasing cognition is associated with higher scam susceptibility scores and is predictive of fraud victimization. Second, overconfidence in one’s financial knowledge is associated with fraud victimization and so much more.