- We’ve done nothing wrong, bank insists
Barely six months after the Consumer Protection Council ordered First City Monument Bank to refund N1.54 billion to the Bauchi State Government, being the total sum of illegal deductions made from the state’s loan account with the bank, there are strong allegations that the bank is again caught in the web of similar sharp practice.
he bank have continued to allege that it overcharged them in some deductions from their loan accounts, a staff of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Mr. Kola Adepoju, whose ordeal with the bank was published by The Point in its last week edition, has taken his case to the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.
According to financial experts, FCMB appears to be battling with several fraud cases, due to weak internal control, and greed on the part of some of its staff. The Point’s findings revealed that some of the cases at the Ijebu Ode branch had b e e n reported to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the ICPC.
A top source at the bank’s headquarters in Lagos, said, “We treat several cases of fraud every quarter and most of them are done by a third party but in connivance with some senior officials of the bank, either at the branch or headquarters level, to implicate an unsuspecting subordinate or to take advantage of ignorant depositors.
“Recently, a fraudster went to our Ijebu Ode branch to clear a cheque worth N5 million from the account of a customer who was abroad. The cashier observed an irregular signature and alerted the branch’s superior officer, who signed at the edge of the cheque as an approval for the cheque to be honoured.
“A few months later, the customer came to the branch threatening to sue the bank. When the cheque was presented to confirm who authorised payment, the edge of the instrument, where the senior banker signed, had been torn. While the bank paid the customer, the cashier and her guarantor were made to refund the bank.”
Adepoju, however, alleged that the branch manager of his Ijebu Ode branch was an unrepentant fraud who also threatened him. Adepoju claimed that the FCMB branch manager also boasted that there was nothing he, as a customer of the bank, could do to get a refund of the money allegedly deducted from his account.
According to him, initially, the manager pleaded with him that the excess charges would be refunded to his account, but he was taken aback, when the FCMB official changed tune last week, claiming that the bank had not defrauded him and daring him to seek legal redress if he was not satisfied with the bank’s decision.
“I have reported the case to the Chartered Institute of Bankers and I am expecting the professional body to take steps after their investigations. I have been on the case for four months and the bank has been treating me as if I came to beg them for money,” he said.
We have done no wrong, FCMB insists
Meanwhile, just as it did last week while reacting to the allegations by some of its customers, the spokesperson of the bank, Mr. Diran Ojo, explained that the bank was one of the strongest in the country. Ojo added that such allegations against the FCMB by customers were baseless and untrue. “As far as I am concerned, the bank has not engaged in any illegal charges from the loan account of its customers,” he told The Point.
