CBN recovers N5bn illegal charges on depositors’ funds from banks

 THE Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, yesterday, said it has recovered over N5 billion illegal charges on depositors’ funds from commercial banks.Deputy Governor in charge of financial service of the CBN, Mr. Kingsley Moghalu, who disclosed this in Abuja, yesterday, during an interface with the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, said the money was illegally deducted from depositors’ funds by the banks.

He said the recovered monies had been paid back to the affected depositors by the commercial banks. He, however, did not mention the banks involved in the illegal deductions.
According to him, “we are aware of complaints of all sorts of inappropriate bank charges and we have taken a number of steps to begin to systematically address these problems.

“I can tell you that in the last year or two the CBN has been able to recover N5 billion in wrong charges to bank customers. Those monies have been returned to Nigerians by their banks at the directives of the CBN in the course of our work in consumer protection.”

Moghalu who also briefed the Senator Bassey Otu-led committee informed the Senators that the apex bank had put in place an appropriate framework to forestall any future financial crisis in the banking sector.

He added that the CBN’s priority in its reform process between now and 2015 was to ensure consumer protection and data integrity, including a sound macro prudential framework that would help to stabilise the financial sector.

He also mentioned that another strategy by the apex bank to forestall any financial meltdown in future was stopping commercial banks from giving further loans to customers who owed up to N5 billion.

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