Reprieve may have come the way of commercial bank customers, as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has facilitated their repayment of N82.2 billion for failed transactions.
The apex bank said the recovery was based on verified complaints as of June this year.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who made the disclosure yesterday in Calabar at the CBN Fair, observed that since customers have rights to redress, they should, without fail, report infractions.
He said: “Oftentimes, there have been sundry issues. Once we get these complaints, we investigate and if the issues are found to be true, we make sure refunds are made. As of June 2021, we have facilitated the refund of N82.2 billion to customers.”
Represented by the Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi, the CBN boss explained that “as of June 2021, not less than 23, 536 complaints were received from which N82.2 billion was refunded.”
He charged customers to always provide factual information to enable the apex bank fact-find.
Emefiele said the CBN was undertaking 37 interventions in the areas of credit, health, commercial agriculture, real and electricity market stabilisation sectors, among others.
“During the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, we realised that the global economy was shut down, with families and businesses affected.
“The first thing CBN did was to roll out some interventions to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on livelihoods and businesses. It was a health crisis, and we needed to up our game in terms of health infrastructure,” he stated.
On the exhibition, Emefiele said the event “is to create awareness on our policies, intervention, and programmes, as well as getting feedback from Nigerians on how they are impacting their lives and businesses.”
He submitted that with the establishment of SANEF Agent Bankers, about 95 percent of Nigerians would have a bank account opened by 2023, but advised customers to demand ‘Agent Certificate’ from anyone who claimed agentship.
