OGBONNA, Felix Ibezim PhD1, ORDU, Chile Umezurike PhD2, WEJINYA, Stella Wada PhD3
1, 2 Department of Accounting,
Faculty of Administration and Management,
Rivers State University, Port Harcourt
E-mail: felix.ogbonna@ust.edu.ng, Zurikings@gmail.com/ chile.ordu@ust.edu.org
*3Department of Logistics and Suppliy Chain
Faculty of Administration and Management
Rivers State University, Port Harcourt
E-mail: stella.wejinya@ust.edu.ng
Abstract
The study empirically investigated the relationship between digital economy and financial crime in Nigeria. Theoretical, conceptual and empirical literature on digital economy and financial crime were reviewed. The population of the study consists of institute of chartered accountants of Nigeria and Association of national accountants of Nigeria. The study implemented the population as census because the population is small. A total of 250 primary data were distributed to the respondents who are chartered accountants while 215 was collected and used for the analysis. The study adopts descriptive statistics for univariate analysis while Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to test the formulated hypotheses with the aid of statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20. The findings show that blockchain economy significantly relates to financial fraud in Nigeria. Digital economy has significant relationship with financial fraud in Nigeria. The study concludes that there is a strong positive significant relationship between digital economy and financial crime in Nigeria. The study recommends among others that Enhance national cybersecurity measures to protect against financial cybercrimes through robust encryption standards, improving intrusion detection systems, and regular security audits of digital financial platforms. Encourage the adoption of blockchain technology in financial transactions to improve transparency and traceability.
Keywords: Blockchain economy, data economy, digital economy, financial crime.