Sterling Bank may face Customers’ Exodus after 2 Weeks Operations Shutdown over Suspected Cyber Attack
Findings revealed that the crisis that lasted for two weeks was an indiscriminate disappearance of money from customers’ account being experienced by some while other customers also have huge amounts appearing in their account out of thin air, and before these could lead to bigger disaster the whole banking operations was shut down preventing nearly all banking activities for more than 14 days.
It was more than two weeks after that the bank later allowed their customer access back to their account, this situation has thereby caused the customers untold hardship with no form of compensation from the bank apart from opening their banking hall on Saturday for banking activities.
Many Sterling Bank customers were left stranded and unable to gain access to their account both in the banking halls and other platforms for this period and some were made to suffer embarrassments while other incurred losses.
According to one of the affected customers “I was embarrassed by the person who is supposed to collect thrift from me as I am the coordinator of a thrift group, the worst is people are sending money into the account from other banks and the bank is not rejecting it, but I can’t verify if the money entered into my account or not, the worst is the person collecting next want to you it to pay her house rent, for the one week before the issue was rectified, her calls did not give me any breathing space” she explained.
Another customer of the bank who lamented that the bank suspension of banking operations said “I missed a very great opportunity because my bank suspended financial operations on all accounts, there is a chance for me to register for a course for reduced price with a few days window but I lost it to my bank issue, there is need for me to have another bank account as I cannot risk exposing myself to such disappointment again
There is need for Tunji Bello, led Federal Competition & Consumers Protection Commission (FCCPC) to be up and doing especially in terms of the anomalies that are a regular occurrence in the country’s financial sectors. Recently the Sterling Bank held their customers to ransom over issue suspected to be a cyber-attack but which the bank claimed is a glitch.
Sterling Bank customers were left stranded for about two weeks when transactions and the only compensation to the untold hardship faced was the announcement of the banking halls opening for services just one Saturday. This has further angered some longtime customers who are hinting at migrating their banking to another bank that may be having semblance to a good cyber security to forestall being left in the loop again in the future.
