- Blame Telcos – Banks
Following a recent directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria that all commercial banks should send alerts to their customers regarding any transaction on their accounts, findings have shown that most banks still obey the rule in the breach.
The CBN, at the last Bankers Committee Meeting held in Abuja on February 8, this year, gave the mandate as one of the measures aimed at curtailing recurring cases of negligence in the banking industry.
This order became necessary as some fraudsters (in partnership with some internal forces in the banks), had devised new means of beating the internal control units of the banks to perpetrate crimes, fleecing unsuspected depositors.
An alert allows a depositor to monitor and control transactions on his accounts. It also allows him to detect unauthorised or fraudulent transaction on his account immediately it occurs. While some banks send alert to customers once there is any transaction on their accounts, others have been found wanting in this regard.
If such a message is delayed, the bank depositor may find it difficult to know if there is an illegal transaction on his account. In some cases, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians had lodged series of complaints relating to this problem to the apex bank.
After series of investigations into frauds arising from the alert failure saga, The Point found that some customers had issues to resolve with banks such as Diamond Bank Plc, First City Monument Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc.
I was shocked when I made a withdrawal and the debit alert I got reflected an account balance different from what I was expecting. I noticed that my balance was short of N40, 000
DEPOSITORS LAMENT
Some depositors, who spoke with our correspondent in separate interviews, blamed the situation on the carefree attitude and negligence of the affected financial institutions. To some of them, fraudsters connived with some officials of the bank, especially in the internal control units, by not alerting depositors while certain deductions were illegally made from their accounts. A customer of First Bank, Ms. Temi tope Fadeyi, who has been banking with the old generation bank for over 40 years, narrated her ordeal to our correspondent concerning the sum of N40, 000 that was withdrawn from her account by an unknown person without notification from the bank.
The retiree said, “I was shocked when I made a withdrawal and the debit alert I got reflected an account balance different from what I was expecting. I noticed that my balance was short of N40, 000. So, I went to First Bank, Agege (Lagos) branch.
“After lodging my complaints to one of the officials, I was shown my statement of account and it was detected that a withdrawal of N20, 000 was made twice in a day at Ecobank, Ikeja, via ATM. I told the official that after that transaction was made, it was the duty of the bank to have sent me an alert concerning the withdrawal; after all, the bank charges every customer for alerts monthly.”
She added, “The bank official told me that since it was not in their bank that the withdrawals were made, they could not be held culpable for the irregularity.
“I was surprised that the bank could tender such a flimsy excuse when it was supposed to notify me about the legality or otherwise of any transaction, so that it could either allow or abort it.”
Another customer of UBA, Mrs. Tolu Adebayo, who operates a savings salary account with the bank, explained that she signed up for the direct deposit alert but she was not receiving the service paid for every month.
According to her, about N5, 000 was missing from her account last month and she was not notified by her bank of any withdrawal.
“My UBA account is my salary account and whenever salary is paid, I normally leave N20, 000 in the account. But I was shocked last month when I withdrew N4000 from the account and got an alert balance of N11, 000 instead of N16, 000. When I got to the Ikeja branch of the bank, I demanded for a statement of account, but the officer told me to go to the Opebi branch where the withdrawal was made.
“I suspect fraud because when I withdrew from the account, I received alert almost immediately but when the withdrawal was done by an unknown person like my last experience, I never got an alert. This is not right at all.”
A prominent journalist, who pleaded anonymity, related his experience, saying that the recurrence of such incidents without deterrence, had been as a result of subscribers’ indifference.
He said, “The banks are fraudulent. They fleece customers using all sorts of gimmicks and excuses like poor network. A lot of people are not complaining because the amount involved seems small. But then it accumulates.
“I remember confronting my account officer about three months ago to protest the non-reflection of a transfer of N700, 000 I made from my Diamond Bank account to another bank and that the beneficiary, on the other hand, neither got the money nor the notification of the transaction for two weeks.”
He added, “It was not reflected till I threatened to report the case to their headquarters and CBN. Before then, the beneficiary didn’t believe I sent him the money, he thought I was trying to play a fast trick on him.”
SABOTAGE, NETWORK FAILURE?
The Managing Partner, Mobility Standards, an Information Technology firm, Mr. Yomi Adegboye, explained that the development might arise from a technical issue as he attributed it to the poor network service provided by the Internet Service Provider of the banks and telecommunication firms that serviced the depositors.
“It could be from the server of the banks or from the mobile network, which provides Short Message Service notifications for the depositors. Technically speaking, it could also be a possibility that the IT departments of some banks are sabotaging the notifications in order to commit irregularities on customer’s transactions,” he stated.
Another IT expert, Mr. Segun Mustapha, explained that such cases where bank customers could not get alert or notifications on transactions made on their account could be traced to a network or telecommunication problem on the part of the bank, which rarely occurs. He added that it could be that the bank customer’s ATM pin had been tapped.
“It is very rare for customers not to get alerts on transactions made on their accounts, but if such happens, it may be a network problem of the bank which may have resulted in the delay of notifications. It could also be that the customer’s PIN had been tapped.
Nonetheless, if such happens, banks will rectify such problems if complaints are lodged,” he said.
BLAME BANKS— CAFON
President, Consumer Advocacy Foundation of Nigeria, a non-profitmaking organisation, Ms. Sola Salako, who had, several times, declared a ‘No banking day’ to protest the continued arbitrary irregularities on bank customers’ accounts, told The Point that if customers didn’t get notifications on their accounts for transactions that were not authorised by the account owners, it meant a fraud had occurred on that account.
She added that even the CBN’s mandate of compulsory alerts on bank customer’s account was faulty. “I feel SMS alert should be by choice and not by force, because SMS alert does not prevent fraud on accounts. It only alerts that there has been a fraud. So by making it compulsory implies customers will be charged N4 and then the bank now gets the N4 to 3 SMS on one account so that they can be making money; that means they are exploiting customers
“So, in a situation where a customer chooses that he or she wants alerts on transactions made on his or her account and is paying for it and does not get the SMS alert, then he or she can hold the bank responsible. The customer should write to the bank and complain of the irregularity.”
She added that in a situation where customers discovered a reduction of their account balance in which they were not notified, then the consumer had a case against the bank.
“This is because the bank signed up that they would alert you on every transaction made on your account. So the bank is liable for that missing money,” she contended.
HOLD TELCOS RESPONSIBLE- FBN
Contrary to the allegation of fraud levelled against the banks by some experts and depositors, the banks insisted that they had zero tolerance for fraud and sharp practices.
Head, Media and External Communications, First Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Babatunde Lasaki, explained that the inability of depositors to receive alerts from the bank was not the financial institution’s fault but that of the telcos’.
According to him, most of the notifications are done in partnership with most of the service providers and these providers do have glitches and down times.
He added that when they had glitches, most of their SMS alerts would not deliver to recipients and sometimes they delivered late because they had been programmed for those accounts. Whether the notifications delivered or not, the debit would definitely occur, he said.
He added, “If any customer has done two to three transactions on his account and didn’t receive an SMS alert, he should call either the bank’s various customer service centre lines or complain at the nearest branch.
“He would be asked to obtain a form and fill to reactivate the automatic notifications service. It is not a deliberate thing from the bank and it is not specific to one particular bank; it is an industry issue. Most times, it is due to technology.”
