CBN to hammer banks, others N2m fine for arbitrary charges

As part of the effort to curb excessive, unapproved and or arbitrary charges by commercial banks and other financial institutions operating in the contry, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed that any banks who charge customers above approved thresholds will pay N2 million fine per infraction.

In clarification on Tuesday morning, CBN noted that its Guide to Bank Charges stipulates a penalty of N2,000,000 per infraction or as may be determined by the CBN from time to time for financial institutions that breach any provision of the guide.

“The guide also emphasizes that failure by any bank to comply with CBN’s directive in respect of any infraction shall attract a further penalty of N2,000,000 daily.

“In order to ensure that banks actually attend to every customer’s complaints, CBN has directed banks to log every complaint received from their customers into the Consumer Complaints Management System (CCMS) in addition to generating a unique reference code for each complaint lodged, which must be given to the customer.

“CBN has also warned that failure to log and provide the code to the customer will amount to a breach and is sanctionable with a penalty of N1,000,000 per breach.”