Forensic Accounting and Fraud Prevention and Detection in Commercial Banks in Nigeria

This study examined forensic accounting and its effect on fraud prevention and detection in Nigerian banks. Research data was collected from commercial banks staff in Nigeria adopting a simple questionnaire as the study instrument. Convenience sampling approach was adopted in the selection of 53 respondents from the population of the study. Fifty of the questionnaires were completed and returned. The study objectives included: to determine the effect of forensic accounting services rendered by forensic accountants on the prevention of fraud in banks. The survey approach was adopted in the conduct of the study while formulated hypotheses were validated using ordinary least square method (OLS) regression technique. Findings from the study unveil that there is a significant relationship between litigation support services, crime investigation services and documentation and reporting as forensic accounting functions and the prevention of fraud in banks. Arising from the findings, it was recommended that litigation support service should be enhanced to achieve optimal utilization in banks to reduce the occurrence of fraud; forensic Accountants functions should be performed by well-trained individuals and professionals in the profession. Furthermore, bank staff should be well remunerated with enhance packages that increases their motivation to contribute to organizational performance without seeing the performance of the organization as beneficial to management only but a joint beneficiaries of improved corporate performance while crime investigation should be enhanced to ensure continuous delivery to avoid lapses and gaps in the review of criminal acts by employee and other stakeholders in the banking sector of the financial service industry.