Written By Dr Harvey Olufunmilayo

I have lived in UK a few years now and NEVER has my bank ever charged me one penny for bank transfer.
NEVER. NOT ONCE. I’m sorry. But that 52 naira 50kobo that Nigerian banks deduct per transaction, what exactly is it for? Why is no one speaking out against this blatant fraud?

Next is the fraudulent “Card Maintenance Fees” by our Nigerian banks. Please how are you maintaining a card that lives in my wallet?I have about 3-4 UK Bank Cards here. Both credit cards and debit cards. I have NEVER paid any such thing as a “Card Maintenance Fee”.NEVER EVER.

Ngerian Banking Sector is an unfortunately over-bloated industry that thrives on systemically entrenched policies that terribly defrauds us Nigerians and lives on cheating the average citizen of the hard earned money that is entrusted in their care to help save and invest. You want to send money to someone from your Nigerian bank account and you first have to plan an extra 52 naira 50kobo. Money that is electronically sent from one Nigerian bank account to another Nigerian bank account. What exactly is the charges for? Why is this fraud tolerated? Someone said the charges goes to NIPOST. I want to believe it is mere trolling as it makes absolutely no sense. Please, How is Nipost involved in an ELECTRONIC money transfer? Did I put the money in an envelope and post it? Or what? We deserve better. This is systemic cruelty.

When I applied for ATM Cards in UK (both debit and credit), I was NEVER charged a penny.
The card is given free. And “maintenance”, if there’s any such thing, is done free. IF we never get the chance to see how things happen in other places, we won’t know we are being cheated. When I applied for an ATM Card in Nigeria, I was charged 1,000 naira to have one. And I’m being charged some extra regularly in the pretence of an imaginary “Card Maintenance Fees”. This is systemic corruption and a fundamental banking fraud aimed at impoverishing us Nigerians.

Let’s do a little maths, dear friends.
According to NIBSS, as at December 2017, there was almost 65,000 daily Electronic Fund Transfers in 2017. At 52.50 naira per transaction, that’s over 3 million naira a day. And about 1 billion naira a year. Should this fraud continue?
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A bank will claim it cares about you, send you an SMS on your birthday or on special occasions then later come back to charge you for that same SMS. A totally unsolicited SMS I never asked you for.

This is absolute madness.
Why are you charging me for wishing me happy birthday? I can’t surely cover all of the covert fraud, deceit and clear cheating that goes on in our Banking Industry but I hope this little piece will inspire conversations on why we should. And for those saying, “banks aren’t at fault, it’s the central bank” Most of us have no business with central bank but with our banks. If we put the fire on our banks, they will pass the message across to the central bank and the other fraudsters benefitting from this madness.


It actually looks like what we have is a lot of flashy big-for-nothing banks that have lost initiative for serious banking and profitable investments, so they have to rely on many cruel baseless and inconsiderate charges to remain in business- ALL at the detriment of customers, Because it’s too unfair when an average Nigerian bank user sits down to really analyse and share what their experiences are with banks. They all seem to be a necessary evil and an unavoidable calamity-
a disaster we just have to live with because we really have no other choice. And talking of use-of-ATM charges,
UK has ATMs called “free cash machines” that are available everywhere for people to make withdrawals without any extra cost on the bank user.

I wonder why Nigerian bank leaders are aware of good initiatives like this but will never do the same. Please share your stories here.
Tag your banks. Let them see where we all hurt. #Reform9jaBanks

johnime:
The big scam isn't alerts or debit, it is N65 ATM withdrawal from other banks charge.This banks set their machines not to pay beyond 10k when using other bank ATM card. Imagine you wanting to 100k, the 1st 3 transactions attracts no charge but you have to pay 455 to complete your withdrawal.

joshuakdboy:
very annoying

Every time I receive that alert for card maintenance, I just ask myself what did they maintain?