.The African region is experiencing an explosion of mobile money services as banks and mobile providers compete for customers who could otherwise not have a bank account.

However, there is also an upsurge in cybercrime targeting the financial sector. Phishing attacks on unsuspecting customers have increased in effort to lure them to fake sites and steal their personal details, which are then used for transactions. The phishing attacks are mainly occurring in South Africa, where online banking is common, while mobile money theft is common in other parts of Africa.

Earlier this month, one of  South Africa's largest commercial banks, Amalgamated Bank of South Africa (Absa) was forced to suspend online payments for transactions through online payment processing portal Eassypay because one in three deals were discovered to be fraudulent, according to the bank. Fraudsters were illicitly entering credit card details into the site to buy prepaid products such as airtime and electricity to sell them at a profit.

Easypay is an online portal that allows people to buy airtime, electricity, pay traffic fines and other bills. Absa claimed that at least 500,000 rand (about US$68,000) in illicit transactions have so far been reversed by the bank this year.

Cybercrime in the region has increased following the lowering of bandwidth and internet connectivity by undersea cables.