This is not the best of times for bank customers losing a huge part of their deposits to lenders by way of spurious charges.

There are current account maintenance fees, performance bond fees, advance payment guarantee fees, bills for collection against acceptance fees to cash handling charge, stamp duty charge.

Others are stopped cheques fees, card maintenance fee, debit card charges, international withdrawals fees, Short Message Service (SMS) Alert fees, among others, that make customers lose a large part of their deposits to the lenders.

Many banks target the last day of each month and first day of a new month, for taking their monthly fees and commissions for services rendered, and sometimes, for those not rendered.

Industry statistics showed that more than 400,000 customers lodged arbitrary charges complaints against their lenders in the last six months, with less than 10 per cent of the transactions reversed and leaving a large number of their customers disgruntled.

This is exactly how a Lagos-based customer, Adebisi Amodu felt when she received a SMS alerting her that N4,500 would be debited from her savings account.

“They have just taken my money again. And it is painful to pay for services that I never even subscribed to, let alone enjoyed.

I never asked for my bank to send me daily account balances, but they do and it is costing me a fortune,” she narrated.

Her friend, Aisha Bello has also fallen victim to seemingly unwarranted charges. In three months, Bello lost over N45, 000 to the bank for fees and commissions charged on her corporate account.

“My bank balance kept falling even when I did not make any cash withdrawals. My bank keeps saying the charges are legal, but for me, it is a disturbing situation that needs to be addressed by the regulators otherwise a lot of people will have to abandon their accounts,” she claimed.

President, National Association of Telecom Subscribers (NATCOMS) Deolu Ogunbajo, said he has also been inundated with complaints about these charges. According to him, instead of the banks sending one alert to cover statutory deductions such as VAT, stamp duty and the debit transaction, the banks would split the alerts in the hope of making more money.

“It is really disheartening. On every bank transaction, these shylocks send three separate alerts. They send for the debit on the account proper; send another for VAT deduction as well as stamp duty. At N6 per SMS, that’s N18 per one transaction. If I do 100 transactions in a month, that’s about N5,400 just on SMS. That’s criminal. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), through the Bankers Committee should step in and save bank customers. We don’t want to resort to litigation on the matter,” he said.

When our correspondent visited one of the branches of a new generation bank along Town Planning Way, Anthony area of Lagos State, no fewer than four customers came to complain about these excessive charges. A frustrated female aged customer complained bitterly and demanded to know why over N4000 had to be deducted from her account in fell swoop. A teller tried in vain to explain to the old woman that the Federal Government had approved a 50 per cent hike in the cost of telecom services, meaning the N4 she was paying from one SMS has increased to N6. “I am 75 years old. I am not interested in all these explanations. Just stop deducting my money else I will close my account with this bank. Every year, you people will be posting over N300billion profit,” she yelled.

Another customer who gave her name simply Fisayo, demanded to have a breakdown of how her cash was deducted. One of the tellers gave a form to fill. “I will stop you people from sending SMS alert to me. I have an email address. This exploitation must stop,” she said.

Over 70 million bank customers in Nigeria have continued to endure multiple and illegal bank charges and fees for decades.

President, Bank Customers Association of Nigeria (BCAN), Dr. Uju Ogubunka, said both the CBN and banks are expected to protect the interest of customers but that seems not to be the case.

He believes those protecting banks’ interests at the expense of their customers and businesses are not helping to bring the needed growth to the banking sector and economy. He said the several of the fees will discourage financial inclusion as being canvassed by the CBN and commercial banks.

He said the CBN’s financial inclusion target remains to provide financial access to the hundreds of millions of men and women who are presently excluded from financial services.

He predicted that is these fees are not eased or reduced drastically, the number of people excluded from the financial services sector would likely increase. He has therefore called on the CBN to take a second look at these fees and charges in order not to discourage more people, especially the low income earners from embracing financial services which boost productivity and economic development.

Co-founder and chairman at Countryside Data Research Limited, Michael Nwadike, described the bank charges as too high. He said the customers of the banks are also affected by the same economic downturn in the economy that hurt lenders’ performance.

“Bank customers have lost a lot sustaining their purchasing power because of rise in inflation which is 22.97 per cent in May. The customers also bear the brunt of price increases in energy and electricity tariffs. Remember the charges also come with VAT paid to government. They are trying the kill the customers, especially small businesses which are the goose that lay the golden eggs for this economy,” he said.

For Nwadike, introducing more charges is not the solution to banks’ decline in profit, rather the lenders should a more efficient cost management strategy that could entail infrastructure sharing.

“Many banks build big telecom masts for their networks, run on generators throughout the day to support their systems and even open more branches instead of improving on their e-payment platforms. I believe they can produce better results if two or three banks run on one generator, share telecom masts and also share the costs equitably to reduce the temptation of taking arbitrary charges from customers’ accounts,” he suggested.

Many of the charges, run contrary to the operations of “Guide to Charges by Banks, Other Financial and Non-Bank Financial Institutions” which provides a basis for the application of charges on various products and services offered by Financial Institutions in Nigeria to their customers.

The guide which applies to all financial institutions licensed and/or regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria, are hardly followed by the lenders.

The CBN directed financial Institutions to note that any breach of the provisions of this guide carries a penalty of N 2 million per infraction or as may be determined by the apex bank from time to time.

For instance, although management fee is not applicable in the case of a restructured facility, may banks apply the fee at every renewal. There are also fees that are negotiable, but the banks hardly allow customers to negotiate and arrive at better pricing.

The CBN explained that the charges prescribed in the Guide were arrived at after extensive consultations with stakeholders. The intendment of the Guide is to enhance flexibility, transparency and competition in the Nigerian banking industry.

Where a charge is stipulated as “negotiable”, financial institutions are required to draw the attention of customers to their rights to negotiate and the two parties are required to mutually agree on the applicable charge via a verifiable means.

Findings showed that many bank customers are switching to Fintechs, mainly O’Pay, Moniepoint and PalmPay for their transactions. Many of the Fintechs are promising and implementing zero fees on transactions.

Sterling Bank also recently eliminated transfer charges for online transactions, ushering in a new era of truly free digital banking. The policy, which is already in effect, is aimed at rewarding Nigerians who join the bank before the end of April.

The bank’s Chief Executive Officer, Abubakar Suleiman, underscored the strategic nature of this decision. “This is not an incidental event; it is a well-orchestrated initiative built on years of transformation,” Suleiman said.

He highlighted three critical technological advancements that laid the groundwork for this policy. “The first one was that we actually wrote a code from scratch to create a call back in an application that can handle five million customers, and I think it has handled over 180 million transactions since it went live.

“The second thing we did was we did a complete migration from legacy European software to a new platform tailored for scalability and the third thing that we did was to completely implement a new environment by creating a private cloud that has far more capacity than anything we have ever needed or we think we are going to need.”

Speaking at the Bankers’ Night in Lagos, CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, admitted that Nigeria’s dynamic Fintech ecosystem has driven financial inclusion and positioned the country as a hub of innovation in Africa.

“Despite a challenging external environment, Nigerian Fintechs continue to shine, attracting significant foreign investment and several have achieved global unicorn status this year. Their innovations, alongside other financial service providers, have fueled growth in transactions and made financial services more affordable and accessible for many more Nigerians,” he said.

Cardoso advocated that banks and Fintechs must continue to leverage the e-payment channels to enhance access to finance and credit, particularly for under-served populations. He urged fintech companies and banks to ensure their platforms are not exploited for fraudulent activities.

“Strengthening the Know Your Customer onboarding process is essential to prevent malicious actors from exploiting our financial system. Additionally, these institutions must prioritize improving transaction monitoring and bolstering consumer protection measures to ensure that digital channels remain safe, especially for the most vulnerable segments of our population,” Cardoso said.

Nkem Oboko while speaking to her experience regarding bank charges said, “My experience with my bank has been horrible. A daily deduction of N50 every day from midnight. Irrespective of the amount transferred, there’s another deduction of more than N25 from my account. I still get charged monthly charges for sms. For the month of June I was charged more than N1,400 for SMS only.” (The Nation)