GTCO, Zenith Bank, Others Refund N36.12bn to Customers in 2Years

Following the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) guidelines on the resolution of customers’ complaints, a total of nine banks refunded N36.12 billion to their customers between 2020 and 2021, THISDAY findings has revealed.

The nine banks are; Zenith bank Plc, Access Holdings Plc, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Guaranty Trust Holding Plc (GTCO), and Fidelity Bank Plc.

Others include; Unity Bank Plc, Wema Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc, and FCMB Group Plc.

The apex bank had disclosed that cumulative refund by banks to customers as of December 2021 was at N95.2 billion and advised customers to allow banks resolve their complaints within two weeks.

“If after lodging your complaint and your bank fails to engage you and resolve the complaint within two-week as provided for in the ATM help desk Circular, you have the right to escalate your complaint to the Consumer Protection Department (CPD) of the CBN.

“You can only direct your complaints to CPD upon the failure of your Bank/Financial Institution to resolve your complaint within the two-week timeline given by the CBN, ”the CBN said.

The data collected from the banks’ financial statements showed a significant increase in the number of settlements by the nine banks within the period under review.

According to THISDAY findings, the nine banks in 2021 refunded a total of N17.43 billion to customers from N18.69 billion reported in 2020.

However, the Year-on-Year (YoY) refund by the banks dropped by 6.7 per cent between 2020 and 2021 as complaints about issues like dispense errors, controversial deductions are among issues customers continued to trend within the banking industry.

The breakdown revealed that Zenith Bank followed by UBA refunded the highest amount to customers in the two years under review.

As Zenith Bank reported an increase of 88.34 per cent in customer refund to N7.01billion in 2021 from N3.72billion in 2020; UBA announced a sum of N3.58 billion refund in 2021, a decline of 4.42 per cent from N3.75 billion in 2020.

Similarly, Access Holdings reported 15.7 per cent drop in customers’ refunds to N2.74 billion in 2021 from N3.25 billion in 2020.

On its part, of GTCO Holding reported N363.3 million total refund in 2021 from N75.99 billion in 2021, representing an increase of 381.4 per cent YoY.

Similarly, Fidelity Bank refunded N1.72 billion to customers in 2021 from N595 million in 2020 while Unity Bank reported N583.08 million refunds to customers in 2021, an increase of 48.8 per cent from N391.8 million reported in 2020.

Wema Bank refunded to its