Several weeks ago, the Consumer Advocacy Foundation of Nigeria (Cafon), a non-profit-making organisation, had declared March 1 No Banking Day to express its grievances against alleged arbitrary, illegal and excessive charges by the deposit money banks (DMB). Cafon said its members would mobilise bank customers across the country to boycott banking services nationwide in an attempt to force banks to drop the arbitrary charges.
Today's protest will involve holding peaceful demonstrations across major town and cities in the country. Yesterday, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) conceded that there is a problem, reiterating an earlier stance to protect bank customers against excessive charges by commercial banks.
Last week, the CBN said commercial banks refunded N6.2bn (£22.13m) in excess and illegal charges to customers during the course of 2015. It said customers, who have genuine complaints about arbitrary charges, should forward them to its Consumer Protection Department.
A CBN spokesman said that while the banking sector had witnessed radical reforms in recent years which had assisted in driving the Vision 20: 2020 programme, it would not allow the imposition of excessive charges on bank customers. He added that in order to ensure a mutual and beneficial bank-customer relationship, the CBN had issued guidelines on bank charges, which it said had been widely circulated.
“The CBN rolled out the cashless policy with a number of options in the electronic payment systems, including the mobile banking. To achieve this, the CBN had enlisted electronic and telecom service providers to ensure convenience and safety and also set up the Consumer Protection Deparment saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that customers are not unduly short-changed by the commercial banks.
“It is equally expected that while the regulators are doing their own bit, bank customers must not only insist but persist in demanding that their respective banks give them good service and at affordable charges. Nigerians should note that the bank-customer relationship is personal and contractual and should seek for redress when short-changed,” the CBN spokesman added.
According to the CBN, it had investigated about 6,000 compliance cases which led to the recovery of about N6.2bn from banks as excessive charges imposed on their customers in 2015. It called on Cafon to take cognisance of value creation by the enablers of today’s convenient financial transactions process but also encourage Nigerians to take complaints that are related to wrongful bank charges to the appropriate quarters.
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