BANKING Dh175 charge on FAB accounts attributed to ‘system issue’

A Dh175 charge that was applied to First Abu Dhabi Bank customer accounts over the New Year was because of a “system issue”, the bank told customers on its Facebook page.

The charge labelled “debit interest” on customer statements, which was refunded to many on Monday morning, had been deducted from the bank accounts on New Year’s Eve.

“We identified that some First Abu Dhabi Bank customers were incorrectly charged interest,” a FAB spokesperson said.

“The charges will be reversed. We will contact all customers that were affected and regret any inconvenience this may have caused them.”

The financial institution, which has assets in excess of Dh732 billion, closed its doors for four days last year over the National Day weekend to give the bank, which was formed by the merger of First Gulf Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi in April 2017, time to integrate the two banks’ IT systems.

Customers wanting to make payments such as bills or remittances during the closure had to complete transactions before the start of the shutdown on November 28.

After the charge was deducted from customer accounts on December 31, many customers voiced their concerns on the bank’s Facebook page.

One customer wrote: “Can you kindly explain why have you deducted Dh175 from my account on December 31?” Another said: “Please can you let us know when the Dh175 will be back in customers ‘accounts and why it was taken without any explanation?”

Others complained that they had unanswered calls to the customer call centre when tried to get in touch to resolve the issue.

Julie Borland, the owner of a small cosmetics business in Ras Al Khaimah, told The National that the bank refunded the charge last Monday morning.

“I noticed it on New Year’s day, after someone posted on a forum that a charge for debit interest had been taken from their FAB account,” she said.

“I checked and both my husband and I were charged. My husband then contacted the bank and initially the operator tried to say it was to do with the transactions he had made.

“But then my husband told him it was a wider issue but the person did not know too much about it.”

Ms Borland said the service agent had advised that all customers would have to phone in to request that the charges be reversed.

“But I didn’t phone in and I received the money back automatically,” she added.

FAB apologised to customers for the inconvenience on Facebook after several customers complained