Nigerians are taking one of the leading commercial institutions in Nigeria, Access Bank, to the cleaners due to what is termed ‘corporate stealing’.
The nation’s social media is awashed with different posts pointing to the ‘insensitive’ deductions of funds from the bank’s customers under what is termed as stamp duties charges. With #AccessBankScam trending on Twitter, some even likened the bank’s activities to Hushpuppi’s fraudulent escapades like the post below.
Stamp duty is one of the sources of revenue generation for the government and are charged by same through various means.
An aggrieved Nigerian wrote:
Charging cumulatively. Talk of insensitive. At the time people are still struggling to get back in business. A friend told me he was charged 18k.
Also recall that when Nigeria was really struggling to contain the spread of COVID-19 virus, as part of efforts to assist the Federal Government to combat the virus, some of Nigeria’s biggest companies, and most notable business executives decided to donate money. They donated a total of N25.8 billion as of April 17th, 2020.
Nigerian banks have been particularly instrumental in this regard, having contributed a significant portion of the money.
Access Bank allegedly donated N1 billion.
And while the government was grateful to them, some of their customers are quite displeased. These customers cannot understand why the banks would rather donate to the government instead of crediting their bank accounts directly and wouldn’t stop at that, still deducting their money ‘indiscriminately’.
To be fair, bank customers have a good reason to be upset. In Nigeria, everyone has been adversely affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. Some people have even lost their jobs, with no immediate hope of getting replacements. Therefore, everyone needs some financial relief which hasn’t been forthcoming, unfortunately.
So, it is very understandable for bank customers to expect some money transferred into their accounts by their banks. After all, the banks already have their customers’ account details and could easily send money across to them.
The banks’ ‘inability’ to offer financial assistance to their customers have generated quite a lot of backlash on social media. Some customers even resorted to name-calling, describing the banks as insensitive to the plight of average citizens. They also wondered what the Federal Government is going to do with the billions that have been donated by the companies, even as some other people simply dismissed the donations as a hoax or “audio money.”
With this new development, Nigerians are asking for blood as their scarce resources ‘continued to be used to repay the COVID-19 donation’ by the bank.
But according to a player in the finance industry, who pleaded anonymity, he stated that stamp duties are only charged on current account before now.
Due to the new Finance Act, stamp duties are charged on both current and saving accounts.
He explained further;
For any deposit or electronic transfer from ten thousand naira (N10,000) upward, the act says that the customer should be charged fifty naira (N50) for stamp duties. These stamp duties charges are not exclusive to customers alone but bankers and other financial stakeholders are also affected.
On why Access Bank is deducting customers at this period, he said;
After the passage of the bill, there was an uproar among the stakeholders because the initial law says that stamp duties should be charged on any inflow that starts from N1,000 upward but after sometimes, it was review to N10,000.
During the period, banks didn’t charge any customers for stamp duties but now that they have agreed at N10,000, Central Bank of Nigeria asked banks to get the backlogs for them.
He, however, blamed Nigerians who are always passive and disinterested in the activities of our leaders, believing that by contributing more to governance and asking the right questions, the leaders wouldn’t continue to take Nigerians for a ride.
In its reaction to the allegations, the bank also confirmed the above. See the official response below:
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