Intercontinental Bank’s Unhappy Customer

Mrs. Naomi Essien is a customer of Intercontinental Bank, Toyin Street Branch in Lagos. Sometime in November last year, one of her customers paid some money into her IPSA account but made the payment from another branch in Oregun, Lagos. About a month later, Mrs Essien went to the bank and requested for her account balance and unsatisfied with the figures, she requested for a print out of her account. That began an ordeal that is still unresolved as at press time.

The print out revealed that the payment was not reflected in her account. She raised the issue with the Acting Operations Manager who contacted the branch where the payment was made and she was asked to come back the next day. When she returned to her branch, she was told the payment was ‘hanging’ and he had resolved the issue. He then printed another statement of account for her. However, this new statement was significantly different from the earlier one she got just a few days earlier.

This new statement had been altered as far back as September though the disputed payment was made in November. She also noted that her balance didn’t change in spite of the adjustments to the transactions on her account so in effect; there was still no satisfactory explanation for the disputed payment.

Concerned about her money, Mrs Essien sought a resolution to this issue at her branch for months but no one could explain what really happened. In frustration, she sent a complaint to the bank’s headquarters a few weeks ago. She received a letter from the customer care department promising to investigate and get back to her. That was more than two weeks ago.

My Comments.

This customer’s complaint raises some core issues that borders on trust and confidence in banking transactions. A third party makes a deposit in a customer’s account and for over 2 weeks, that transaction did not reflect in the account and the bank was unaware until the customer complained. What happened to simple book keeping principles of balancing accounts at close of business?

The term ‘hanging’ is quite novel to me but I guess it must be common to bankers. How do you post a transaction to a specific account and it never gets there? Where was the money ‘hanging’? In financial cyberspace? What if Mrs Essien was like me and, I am sure, millions of customers who don’t bother to check the transactions on their accounts? Would the money have ‘hanged’ forever? One cannot help but wonder how many millions of naira are ‘hanging’ in financial cyberspace without the affected customers’ knowledge?

This case also highlights the challenges the banking industry seems to be having with technology in banking service. Or how does one explain how two print outs of the same account within one week reflect such disparity that is backdated two months before the disputed transaction was made? Did the computer make the errors two months earlier in anticipation of the ‘hanging’ transaction? Or someone trying to cover their tracks tampers with the account records when the customer raised the alarm? Only Intercontinental Bank can clear this for the customer and now, because of this publication, the millions of customers reading this piece.


The length of time it has taken the bank to resolve this issue is quite disappointing. Mrs Essien had complained to me since February but I had been reluctant to take it up because I knew she had engaged the customer service structure so I expected the issue to be resolved then. It does nothing for the bank’s customer care culture that five months since she first made the complaint, she still has not received any satisfactory resolution. Would the bank pay her interest on funds for the period it has been unaccounted for? Most likely not.

For a bank that hinges its communication strategy on being happy only when its customers are happy, one wonders how much unhappiness Intercontinental has suffered in sympathy with Mrs Essien’s apparent unhappiness with her relationship with the bank. It is easy to run campaigns eulogizing the customer like most banks do but talk is cheap. Unless service providers demonstrate their commitment to the customer in practical terms, one customer at a time, there will always be a disconnect between both parties; which results in complaints like this. A five-month-old complaint still being investigated belongs in the league of the police force and federal civil service where bureaucracy reigns supreme, not in the culture of a bank.

I decided to publish this complaint so as to alert other customers to be more aware of the transactions on their accounts. If we are going to evolve a more effective consumer protection environment in Nigeria, consumers will also need to take an active part in the process. If you are not too good with figures, please hire an accountant to run periodic checks on your bank accounts to ensure that similar issues are not happening to you unawares. There are so many porous ways in which service providers fleece their customers and though this might not be the case here, imagine if it was actually a planned strategy (like the telecoms industry seem to have perfected as we will be sharing here soon).

‘Wonder’ Charges: Skye Bank too!
On April 24, I published the complaint of a customer against UBA’s cash handling charges practice. I have since discovered that the practice is not limited to UBA alone as it seems practically all the banks are guilty of this questionable practice. I have also received similar complaints from many more customers confirming the growing displeasure to this extraneous and unjustifiable additional expense. To underscore this is this incredible story of a customer’s experience with Skye Bank, Allen Branch. The customer, Tony (he asked to keep his name out of print for business purposes) wanted to transfer the sum of N10m from GTBank to Skye Bank. He called his account officer to let him know that he would be making an interbank transfer which would take a few days to reflect in his Skye Bank account.

His account officer, eager to boost his bottom line, begged him to cash the money and bring it to the bank in cash so it can be lodged in as transaction for that day and he obliged him. One can only imagine his shock when he got his bank statement and discovered a charge of N25, 000 as “cash handling charges” for the transaction! At no point was he informed of any charges for the transaction and he has disputed the charge but the bank is not budging.

I also heard that some banks, trying to encourage the use of the ATM now charge “cash handling fees” on cash withdrawals over the counter of more than N100k. They conveniently forget that the ATM is programmed to dispense a maximum of 20k per transaction. And most ATMs charge N100 per transaction so that means an extra N500 for withdrawing 100k. So customers are forced to pay for withdrawing cash indirectly; not to mention the time wasted conducting 5 ATM transactions to get the desired amount. By the way, it is only in Nigeria that I have heard that customers are forced to use a particular mode of transaction. Whatever happened to choice and preferences?

Obviously, the banking industry is more concerned with its convenience and making profits and least bothered with the customer’s convenience or cost. While we acknowledge that we run the capitalist system, it is unacceptable that service providers like the banks are given a free reign on how and what they charge their customers when the Central Bank just looks on. Whose interests should the Central Bank be protecting; the banks it is regulating or the Nigerian consumer to whom the government should be accountable? (Oops! I almost forgot that governments in Nigeria are accountable only to themselves and the cabals that rig them into power.) Prof Soludo’s unhealthy closeness to the banks he is supposed to be regulating seems to be blurring his oversight of their activities in regular banking transactions. Meanwhile, the customer s are the multiple losers while the banks declare profits in billions.

This ‘cash handling charges’ is unacceptable and I believe this is time to test the system. I am thus advocating for a class action to challenge this practice. If you have a similar dispute with your bank, please get in touch so we can seek legal counsel on how best to pull together to challenge the concerned banks and Central Bank if necessary on this unjustifiable levy after all, there is still a Consumer Protection Act in this country.

Re: UBA’s Wonder Charges
I got a call from UBA on the above story and promised to publish their response to the complaint if they sent one. I am still waiting. Meanwhile, it is surprising that no one has contacted the customer who complained to date, at least not officially. Maybe UBA is really not concerned about what we think of them anymore. One wonders who wants to do business with a service provider who thinks our perception or opinion of them is immaterial. Tut tut, UBA, not impressive customer care response at all.