Members of the House of Representatives expressed overwhelming support for the proposed legislation, which seeks to impose stiffer sanctions on money deposit banks involved in unauthorised transactions and deductions from the accounts of unsuspecting customers.
The lawmakers expressed their support during the debate on the general principles of a bill that seeks to amend the Banking and Other Financial Institutions Act, 2020, sponsored by Hon. Moses Fayinka.
In his lead debate, Hon. Fayinka observed that the Banking and Other Financial Institutions Act was last amended and assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2020.
While calling for the House intervention with a view to stop the high level of immunity being perpetuated by the banks, he said: “There is an alarming rise of bank fraud or unauthorised withdrawal of deposit funds in Nigeria. In the banking industry, about 101,801 cases were reported in 2022 and 48,703 cases were reported in 2023, making bank customers lose several billions of naira.
“This Bill is in consideration of the uprising of various financial crimes within the country, with many of such passing through financial institutions, or we can call it the commercial banking system. Dear Honourable colleagues, we all know that virtually all banking transactions are done electronically, which means that transactions can either be ATM, POS, direct cash transfer, fast cash, and many others, in which many bank customers have fallen victim and have lost their hard-earned fortune without help from any side.
“The bank has the obligation to protect customers funds by way of monitoring its movement. Most of us here today, before money leaves our account, the bank, through its account officers, makes contacts to know if the customer is in authorisation of such a transaction; however, banks have neglected the duty of protecting their customers as regards the safeguarding of their monies in the case of e-transactions.”
According to him, the objective of the proposed bill is to stop illegal fund transactions where monies are moved from the customer’s account without the authorisation of the customer for such transactions to take place.
“To stop banks from covering up such syndicates without reporting such action to the receiving bank and the police for necessary actions.
“For the banks, both the paying and receiving banks to get the culprit arrested and prosecuted and to pay all necessary bills in the course of the recovery processes.
“To make a refund back to the victim’s account without charges.
He maintained that the proposed “amendment will go a long way to curtail electronic means of funds stealing that pass through the banking platforms to their destination, and as we know its nature, these amendments are long overdue.”
In his contribution, Chairman, House Committee on Insurance and Actuarial, Hon. Ahmed Jaha, maintained that “this is very important to Nigerians.
“Even today in the National Assembly, people saw debit alerts that they did not know where they came from.
“We ignore these things because we think the amount is negligible,” he noted.
On his part, Chairman, House Committee on Banking Regulations, Hon. Bello el-Rufai, lamented that every Nigerian faces similar predicaments from the banks.
“We are all victims of this. There should be stiffer fines and penalties for the banks that the Central Bank of Nigeria should enforce,” he urged.
To this end, the bill was referred to the House Committee on Banking Regulations for further legislative action.
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