Technological Forensic Auditing and Financial Crime Detection in Nigeria: A Study of Selected Deposit Money Banks

Abstract:

Financial crime has been one of the current challenges faced by organizations especially deposit money banks. To ameliorate this ugly development, technology-enabled forensic auditing was introduced in addition to conventional auditing. This study examined the impact of technological forensic auditing on financial crime detection in Nigeria; a study of selected deposit money banks in Nigeria. The theories reviewed in the study are the strain theory, the theory of inspired confidence, and the credibility theory. The study adopted the survey design. The population of the study is made up of the accounting staff of five selected deposit money banks in Delta state namely; Zenith, First Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), Fidelity Bank, and Sterling Bank with a statistic of fifty-eight (58) staff/respondents. Data for the study were generated through the distribution of well-structured questionnaires to the corresponding respondents. Data was analyzed with the multiple linear regression method. The study found that robotic process automation, textual analysis, and data analytics contribute significantly to detecting financial crime in selected deposit money banks in Nigeria. It is therefore the recommendation of this study that forensic audit firms and deposit money banks should strategically employ the usage of software applications that can permit data analytics, textual analysis, and robotic process automation to redeem the credibility image of the forensic auditors’ report.