I can now write about it; someone tipped me that MTN Mobile Money was involved in a potential mobile money fraud with exposures in billions of Naira. He cited a court filing where MTN Nigeria was demanding a reversal of the transactions from many Nigerian banks. Unfortunately for him, I do not break news: I focus on analyzing broken news! (So, if you tell me that Ndubuisi Ekekwe has been simultaneously adopted by APC, PDP and Labour as their respective presidential aspirants, at once, I will still wait for it to become public!)
And even when the news had become public, I insisted for the real journalists to write about it. And they have, and what that means we can discuss it. Yes, “MoMo Payment Service Bank Limited (MPSBL), a subsidiary of MTN Nigeria, has sued 18 Nigerian banks over N23 billion worth of transactions involving their customers … MoMo said the N23 billion belonging to its customers was erroneously transferred into about 8,000 bank accounts in 700,000 transactions – and it is asking the Federal High Court to order the banks to return the money to the owners.”
Nigerian banks are not great on fast reversal. Whenever I’m in Nigeria, I use my local bank debit card in restaurants. Most times, the thing will not work. I had to pay cash. But later in the evening, some debit alerts will drop. Because it makes no sense going to a bank for a reversal of N3,000, that money goes and I never get my refund. (I have posited that our POS/debits should be refigured to avoid those).
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For MTN, if the banks refuse, simply ask NCC, the telecom regulator, to “deduct” it and then ask FIRS, the tax agency, to credit you for charitable donations! Central Bank of Nigeria can add it to the vault for Anchor Borrowers Fund. Good luck, MTN.
For MTN, if the banks refuse, simply ask NCC, the telecom regulator, to “deduct” it and then ask FIRS, the tax agency, to credit you for charitable donations! Who knows it can help the Abia State budget as we need funds to clean Aba. You can declare it Abia State money, and leave it for us to recover it from the banks; yes, it must be left in the bank vaults.
MTN MoMo Sues 18 Nigerian Banks Over N23bn ($55m) Customers’ Fund Lost in Erroneous Transactions
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The banks that erroneously transferred funds to thousands of accounts, who authorized those transfers, a bot?
For now nobody has claimed that those funds are missing, rather just sitting in wrong accounts; they should keep them safe and then reverse by compulsion, the only language they understand.