South Africa’s Standard Bank confirmed it has been affected by a credit card fraud involving South African banks in Japan. It said the gross loss to the bank is an estimated R300 million. The South African banking operations of Standard Bank Group have been the victim of a sophisticated, coordinated fraud incident, the bank said in a statement. The scam involved the withdrawal of cash using a small number of fictitious cards at various ATMs in Japan. However, the bank says the target of the fraud has been Standard Bank and there has been no financial loss for customers. The money was stolen through a series of coordinated ATM and convenience store withdrawals. Japanese media is reporting that more than 1,000 ATMs were used in a space of about two hours to complete the fraudulent withdrawals earlier this month.
