COMMERCIAL banks are riding on telco platforms to rake in billions of naira from the increasing number of customers using digital banking services.
Most of the banks deploy several strategies, products and services under which they charge fees, far above what is specified in the guide to bank charges.
Banks charge electronic money transfer fees, annual debit card maintenance fees; N105 online transfer charge for every online transfer and three to five per cent processing fee for cash withdrawals above the cash-less banking limit.
Others include text message fees; processing, management and draw-down fees for loan accounts
Nearly all the 70 million bank customers across the country have one complaint or the other against their banks. They are also speaking out through different platforms, including social media.
There has also been an increase in failed transactions for customers using e-payment services to buy airtime or data. Many customers complain that they are debited for data and airtime purchases without receiving the commodities/services.
In the past, complaints over excessive bank charges reached new heights when the Consumer Advocacy Foundation of Nigeria (CAFON) – a not-for-profit organisation, declared March 1 as No Banking Day.
On No Banking Day, banks’ customers speak in one voice against outrageous charges and poor customer service being rendered to them.
Bank customers were urged not to use Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards, log in to any online banking portal, transfer money through their phones, tablets, or laptops, make Point of Sale (PoS) payments, online payments, issue or present any cheque throughout that day.
Industry statistics showed that more than 700,000 customers lodged arbitrary charges complaints against their lenders in the last six months.
Karima Mashi, a mobile phone subscriber, told this newspaper at the weekend that she bought N2,000 airtime using her mobile banking app, but the airtime was never credited to her account after it was debited.
“The Telco and bank have been tossing me around. No one wants to take responsibility for the transaction. The bank says it was successful and the telco says they never got the money,” she narrated.
According to her, no reversal has been despite several visits to the bank and calls to the telco
Writing on his Facebook page, a bank customer, Michael Adetayo, accused his lender of charging him N1,800 a dollar after he made an online purchase worth $190.96. That, according to him, translates to N342,000, instead of N285,000 based on the N1,500 to the dollar exchange rate at the official market.
Adetayo said: “It’s a debit card, not a credit card. So, the rate on the day of purchase should apply. After all, if the rate had been N1,800 to the dollar yesterday, my buying decision could have been way different or I could have used a different payment platform.”
Analysts said the banks are hedging debit card transactions by keeping funds above the transaction figure in anticipation of an exchange rate increase but fear the funds are never returned to customers.
For Onyeka Okorie, a customer of a new generation bank, everything had gone well until the day he demanded the balance of his account when he wanted to transfer N1 million to a business associate.
“I am talking about my corporate account balance, not savings. That cannot be the balance because I made a cash deposit of N500,000 to the account two days ago,” he told the customer service officer, who for the second time, crosschecked and confirmed the account balance.