The unending complaints of non-reversal of banks’ failed customer transactions have continued to raise serious concerns within Nigeria’s financial sector.
It was gathered that over 60 per cent of complaints from banks’ customers hover around failed transactions.
The development is causing pain, frustration and agony for many customers.
However, at a sensitization fair in Bauchi last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the regulator of the Country’s financial sector, said that commercial banks’ customers got N115 billion in refunds of failed transactions within ten years.
Recall that in June 2020, the CBN, in an effort to curb incessant complaints from banks’ customers, issued a revised timeline for the Dispense Errors refunds.
The CBN said that for ATM dispensing errors from customers’ banks, the reversal should be immediately or at most within 24 hours.
On the other hand, for transactions on other banks’ ATMs, the reversal should be at most 48 hours.
“Failed ‘On-Us’ ATM transactions (when customers use their cards on their bank’s ATMs) shall be instantly reversed from the current timeline of three (3) days.
“Where instant reversal fails due to any technical issue or system glitch, the timeline for manual reversal shall not exceed 24 hours; Refunds for failed “Not-on-Us” ATM transactions (where customers use their cards on other banks’ ATMs) shall not exceed 48 hours from the current 3-5 days.
“Resolution of disputed/failed PoS or Web transactions shall be concluded within 72 hours from the current five (5) days.
“All banks are directed to resolve the backlog of all ATM, POS and Web customer refunds within two weeks starting June 8, 2020″, CBN stated.
But, this is not the case for many banks’ customers. Some banks spend weeks or months before ratifying failed transaction complaints.
In fact, for some banks, it takes forever. The complaints are rampant.
For instance, Counselor Obareki said he was pained that he had not received a reversal on his bank’s failed transaction for over three months.
According to him, he initiated several complaints at the bank but to no avail.
“I have visited the bank countless times; unfortunately, the refund is yet to be made. Honestly, the CBN must do something urgent about the attitude of commercial banks. How can a bank refuse to reverse my N20,000 for over three months? It is pathetic,” he said.
Obareki is not alone. Sani Basiru had a similar experience.
He explained that he has been off and on a bank’s premises in Zaria on the issue, but nothing had been done for three months now.
“When I complained, I was told I would get a reversal in 48 hours, but this is three months now, yet nothing of such”, Basiru said.
Benjamin Okechukwu said in the first quarter of 2023, over N100,000 of his money from failed bank transactions had not been reversed.
“I have done all sorts of things to register my complaints, but it seems they fell on deaf ears.
“I recently called them out online and got an instant response, but the reversal is yet to be done. I think sanctions will curb this menace. It is excruciating that one cannot get back his hard-earned money due to failed bank transactions. The thing is frustrating,” he said.
Okechukwu’s plights like that of many other Nigerians cast aspersions on the credibility of the country’s financial sector.
Earlier, reacting to service failure complaints in the banking and other sectors, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), saddled with the responsibility of consumer and customer protection, advised that companies must be more responsive to their customers.
He added that the Commission was committed to issuing sanctions to institutions that flout its regulation.
“FCCPC believes that the regulatory system is not the only way to be most responsive; the company should be responsive to the people so that they do not need to get to the regulator”, the Executive Vice Chairman of FCCPC, Babatunde Irukera, stated in a Channels Television interview on.