House probes Banks Faulty ATM's
The investigation followed a petition presented by the Chairman, House Committee on Justice, Hon. Ali Ahmad (PDP, Kwara) on the issue.
Ahmad said that a situation where customers passed through harrowing experiences because of malfunctioning ATMs could pose a threat to the country's transition to a cashless economy.
According to him, even when customers lay formal complaint about their account being debited when the ATMs failed to dispense cash, the banks have failed to respond promptly.
The House, Ahmad said, decided to intervene on the issue to curb further manipulation of the system by the banks.
A petitioner had written to the House asking the lawmakers to intervene and prevent the banks from treating such complaints with levity. The petition was referred to the House Committee on Public Petition.
"The banks would continue to indulge in this if there is no sanction to make them responsible by ensuring that their ATMs are always in good condition.
"It may not be out of place that the trend might be deliberate, probably in a bid to use unsuspecting customer's money to ease their (banks) financial pressure.
"This is because if all the incidences are recorded and the funds aggregated by all the banks, there is no doubt that we will be talking about millions of naira being deliberately denied customers while the banks are feeding fat on it.
"These funds are held supposedly for 10 working days, which translates to at least two weeks and the owner of the fund is made to run from pillar to post and at the end of the day, no interest is added to the fund,” the petitioner said.
The Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) recently said that banks in Nigeria have defrauded unsuspecting customers of N8.6 billion as at the first quarter of this year.
Culled from Thisday
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