Court orders 71 banks to freeze accounts linked to N1.3bn Access Bank fraud

THE Federal High Court in Lagos has directed 71 banks and other financial institutions to impose debit restrictions on accounts allegedly used to receive N1.34 billion fraudulently transferred from customers of Access Bank Plc.

Justice Akintayo Aluko issued the order on Friday following an ex parte application filed by Access Bank through its counsel, Ifeoma E. Enyinnaya.

In the application filed on August 13, the bank told the court that it discovered a fraud incident on August 12 involving some customer accounts. According to the bank, the transactions were carried out through its internet banking platform, the Access SME App.

Access Bank said its internal investigation showed that N1,340,425,393 was transferred from customers’ accounts without authorisation into accounts held with Access Bank and 71 other financial institutions.

The bank subsequently approached the court seeking orders to prevent further movement of the funds and facilitate their recovery.

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Among the reliefs sought was an order directing Access Bank and the 71 respondent institutions to place a post-no-debit restriction on the affected accounts and the Bank Verification Numbers linked to them.

The bank also asked the court to compel the financial institutions to file affidavits disclosing the amounts received and the sums that remained recoverable in the beneficiary accounts.

Access Bank further requested that the BVNs associated with the affected accounts be placed on a watchlist until the entire N1.34 billion was recovered, subject to the amount received by each beneficiary.

It also sought an order directing the banks and other respondents to reverse any recovered funds into an Access Bank account designated for the recovery exercise.

The respondents named in the suit include Accion Microfinance Bank, Addosser Microfinance Bank, Alternative Bank, Alpha Morgan Bank, Ecobank, Fidelity Bank, First Bank, First City Monument Bank, Globus Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Jaiz Bank, Keystone Bank, Kuda Microfinance Bank, LAPO Microfinance Bank, Lotus Bank, Moniepoint Microfinance Bank, OPay Digital Services, PalmPay, Polaris Bank, Premium Trust Bank, Providus Bank, Renmoney Microfinance Bank, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Sterling Bank, Union Bank, United Bank for Africa, Wema Bank, Zenith Bank and other financial institutions.

Justice Aluko granted the first three reliefs sought by Access Bank, effectively directing the affected institutions to restrict the accounts, disclose the funds available and watchlist the relevant BVNs.

However, the judge declined to grant the fourth relief, which sought the immediate reversal of salvaged funds to Access Bank.

The court held that granting the fourth relief at that stage would amount to making what appeared to be a final order in the matter.