As some of you may or may not know this year of 2016 was supposed to be the end of all C.O.T charged on all Bank accounts. Many Business men, entrepreneurs, and working class people were looking forward to withdrawing their OWN money from their OWN account and not have the bank charge them for the 'privilege' to do so.

Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that this was another case of P.H.C.N i.e Problem Has Changed Name.

Banks no longer charge "C.O.T" but rather charge what they call "Account Maintenance Fee" or AMF as i will call it from now on. This AMF is the same rate as the former COT charged in 2015 i.e 1 per mill or 1/1000 or 0.001. Basically a bank is supposed to charge you 1 Naira for every 1000 Naira you take out from your bank account. This is the theory.

Banks though have decided that most Nigerians slept through arithmetic in primary and secondary school and instead charge 1% AMF. Lets do a quick arithmetic check

1% or 1 per cent or 1/100 is equal to 0.01. Basically our banks charge us 1 naira for every 100 naira we take from our bank accounts. This is the practice

Lets use a practical example so we can understand it better -

You withdraw a total of 60,000 Naira from your account over a given month. The AMF or COT charged by the bank should be 60,000 X 1/1000. This is equal to 60 Naira. What the bank will do in reality will be to charge 60,000 X 1/100. This is equal to 600 Naira, ten times the amount they should have charged. If you're dealing with bigger withdrawals the magnitude of this fraud becomes clearer

So lets be clear the AMF is not 1%(0.01) it is 0.1%(0.001). If your bank is charging you 1% it is fraud and you should contact them immediately and write them to refund you. Also the AMF is negotiable, in theory you can negotiate the fee with your bank. Good luck trying tho.

Nice one..

Lalasticala... Food is ready ooo

Banks hv bn stealing from customers in d name of sms fee, amf, ATM fee, transfer fee, and so many odas.

Now nipost don get share from it....N50 transaction fee.

Soon FIRS,NIMC,... go soon start der own schemes to syphon money from individuals in d name of ID card renewal fee.......

smh