The House of Representatives has passed for second reading, a bill seeking to protect victims of fraudulent transactions from banks customers’ accounts.
At plenary on Tuesday, majority of the lawmakers supported the proposed legislation, which seeks to impose stiffer sanctions on money deposit banks involved in unauthorised transactions and deductions from the accounts of unsuspecting customers.
The proposed legislation, which is sponsored by Hon. Moses Oluwatoyin Fayinka is titled “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA), 2020 to make Provision for the Protection of Victims of Fraudulent withdrawal from Accounts and for Related Matters (HB.1168),”
Leading the debate on the general principles of the bill, Hon. Fayinka explained that the proposed legislation aimed at stopping illegal fund transactions where monies are moved from the customer’s account without the authorisation of the customer for such transactions to take place.
The lawmaker expatiated” “There is an alarming rise of bank fraud or unauthorised withdrawal of deposit funds in Nigeria. In the banking industry, about 101,801 cases were reported in 2022 and 48,703 cases were reported in 2023, making bank customers lose several billions of naira.
“This Bill is in consideration of the uprising of various financial crimes within the country, with many of such passing through financial institutions, or we can call it the commercial banking system”, he added.
The lawmaker drew the attention of other legislators in the Green Chamber to past incidents of unauthorized transactions in bank customers’ accounts and how such banks were never really strictly sanctioned for such breach of trust.
He said: “We all know that virtually all banking transactions are done electronically, which means that transactions can either be ATM, POS, direct cash transfer, fast cash, and many others, in which many bank customers have fallen victim and have lost their hard-earned fortune without help from any side.
“The bank has the obligation to protect customers’ funds by way of monitoring its movement. Most of us here today, before money leaves our account, the bank, through its account officers, makes contacts to know if the customer is in authorisation of such a transaction; however, banks have neglected the duty of protecting their customers as regards the safeguarding of their monies in the case of e-transactions.
“For the banks, both the paying and receiving banks to get the culprit arrested and prosecuted and to pay all necessary bills in the course of the recovery processes, make a refund back to the victim’s account without charges.
“The amendment will go a long way to curtail electronic means of funds stealing that pass through the banking platforms to their destination, and as we know its nature, these amendments are long overdue”, Fayinka added.
Following his elaborate justification of the need for passage of the bill, the lawmakers passed the bill for second reading.
