Until April 2022, the national multicaixa network (Multicaixa and Multicaixa Express) registered more than 1.005 complaints, which gives an average of 251 per month, which is higher than the average of 179 monthly complaints received last year.
These data were recently released by the Interbank Services Company (EMIS), also informing that the number of complaints registered in 2022 already represents 47% of the total complaints in 2021 and that they represent only a small part of a reality that has yet to be studied.
According to EMIS, based on the fact that more than 6,7 million Multicaixa cards were in circulation until April, the number of registered frauds represents an incidence of only 0,0005%. The number of complaints also shows a strong increase in terms of the Multicaixa Express app, which soared from just 14 official complaints in 2020 to 447 last year. By April 2022, EMIS has already received 62 specific complaints about this service.
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"In general, incidents are linked to people's low digital literacy“, said Duano Silva, executive director of EMIS, adding that “it is a problem for the country, it seems clear that Angolans use the very best in terms of technology but take little advantage of its features, limiting themselves to minimal use. It should be noted that digital literacy is not the same as people's academic literacy. Many of the scams occur on people with high academic education, who do not comply with the most basic security recommendation - not sharing codes and PINs“, indicated the manager.
Along with digital literacy, the low financial literacy of Angolans in general opens the door to theft and fraud in the payment system. Therefore, digital and financial instruction is important to increase user security.
"We have a responsibility to make channels and instruments safer“, stressed Duano Silva.
While physical money (coins and bills) is less and less used, debit and credit cards, as well as different technology-based applications (such as Multicaixa Express, mobile money or digital banking services), are being used more and more. more and more extended.
