Forensic Accounting and Fraud Management in Nigerian Money Deposit Banks
Despite the popularity of forensic accounting in Nigerian money-deposit-banks, fraud cases continue to increase. However, the objective of any sound fraud management in any industries should be to minimize, if not eradicate, fraudulent activities. Fraud management lifecycle (FML) theory postulates that ensuring balance of forensic accounting efforts among all the stages of fraud management will minimize fraud. Consequently, the current work investigates if there is any statistically cogent disparity in the applicability of investigative accounting efforts among the FML stages in Nigerian money-deposit-banks. Primary data collected through questionnaire from 100 respondents were analyzed using Friedman test and Kendall’s W. The results of this study revealed that investigative accounting efforts were appreciably high in fraud deterrence, fraud identification, and fraud mitigation. However, they were low in fraud analysis, investigation of fraud and fraud prosecution. The study recommends that the low should be brought abreast with the high which will subsequently minimize, if not eradicate, cases of fraud in Nigerian money-deposit-banks. Keywords: Investigative accounting, Fraud management, FML stages