The court has held that failure of bank to pay a customer through the ATM when the customer has enough money in the account is a breach of duty of care and contract. The customer is entitled to damages.

The Court of Appeal in the case of in the case of MOSES JWAN v. ECOBANK (2021) 10 NWLR (Pt. 1785) 449 at 485 per Aliyu JCA held,

"The ATM card issued by a bank being akin to a cheque, must be honoured on request once there is enough funds in the customer's account, and failure to do that mean the bank is in breach of duty of care owed to it's customer".

The Court of Appeal granted the sum of N500,000.00 general damages for failure of the ECOBANK to pay its customer through its ATM the sum of N10,000.00.

No doubt, banks customers have been subjected to many forms of frustrations even when they have enough money in the bank account.

The decision of the Court of Appeal is a sweet smelling relieve for all bank customers using ATM. We do hope that the banks in Nigeria will smoothen their operations and render functional, reliable and effective service to it's numerous customers to avoid paying heavy damages to customers who would take advantage of the decision of the Court to pursue their legitimate rights.

Now you know your rights.

It remains for Banking services to improve and for aggrieved customers to take advantage of the decision of the Court of Appeal to pursue their legitimate rights.

A new normal is possible!


Credit: Professor Nnamdi Obiaraeri

Very good precedence. These banks treat customers like crap.

This is a nice position considering the Banker's duty to honour the cheques or amount standing to the customer's credit.

As the poster above me has said, the bank need to do more to resolve this kind of transactions as a result of service failure.


However, I think there should be a qualification or some sort of exceptions.

For instance, how do we qualify an ATM that displays "Unavailable to dispense cash at the moment," or "Issuer Inordinate or inoperative."

I mean, yes, ATM like we have written on them or close-by are supposed to be available to dispense cash 24/7.

I just feel the decision will be too harsh on Bankers and they'll have to pay heavy damages all time when sued by customers that have come to realize their rights under the rule in Moses v. Ecobank.

This was really helpful in my assignment,thank you