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Independent Newspapers<\/p>\n
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Durban – FNB could face thousands of legal cases and sanctions after it unlawfully removed hundreds of thousands of rand from thousands of bank accounts across South Africa this weekend in what has been described by a Durban businessman as \u201ca bloody disgrace\u201d. <\/p>\n
Since May, a computer glitch has seen thousands of bank accounts \u2013 mainly with Absa Bank \u2013 being credited twice with \u201creal-time deposits\u201d by FNB. <\/p>\n
It appears FNB did not pick up or remedy the double deposits immediately, because on Friday afternoon the bank passed \u201ca huge volume\u201d of debit order instructions for 7 000 bank accounts (mainly with Absa) in an attempt to get the money back. <\/p>\n
The chief executive of the Payment Association of South Africa, Walter Volker, confirmed that the 37 000 transactions were in breach of the National Payment System Act and once the full extent and gravity of the breach were known, FNB would be sanctioned. <\/p>\n
Volker said the association had received a preliminary report from FNB that showed a \u201cfew thousand\u201d customers of \u201cat least two banks\u201d were affected. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have the full report on Monday,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The money had been removed from accounts in the wrong manner, Volker said, and those affected should contact their own banks to discuss their options. <\/p>\n
Three Durban businessmen, who asked not to be named, alerted The Mercury to the withdrawals from their Absa accounts that ranged from R1 400 and R17 000, to a double withdrawal of R25 000 from one account. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all very well if the person had money in the bank. But what if they didn\u2019t? Surely in normal business practice FNB should have discussed this with those who received the double deposits, provided them (with) proof of the transaction and then discussed how the money could be recouped? It\u2019s a bloody disgrace,\u201d said one. <\/p>\n
Another of the businessmen said when he asked for a record of the transaction it was dated May 31, 2012. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I looked it up there was a double credit, but I thought my customer had paid me twice, so I credited him with the money. I don\u2019t have it any more,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Farren Roper, the head of FNB\u2019s business operations, said: \u201cWe noted a small batch of double payments being processed when our customers made once-off payments using the bank\u2019s real-time clearing option. The customers making the payments were not negatively impacted by this (the debit order withdrawals), as any excess funds were not drawn from their accounts. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe (Absa and other bank) beneficiaries, however, would have noted a double payment. FNB is reversing these excess payments from the beneficiaries,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
In an e-mail sent to one of the businessmen, Karen Botes, the client management head at FNB Online, said: \u201cWe agree that the method we have deployed to recover the funds was not ideal. We had hoped to find another option, but as we did not have the contact details of the recipients, we were not left with many options to follow.\u201d <\/p>\n
Botes apologised on behalf of FNB for the \u201cimpact of the system issue on your operations and the means chosen to recover this matter\u201d. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday night, on a national radio station, FNB\u2019s Leanne van Zyl said because the transactions had been a banking error, the bank believed \u201cit was fully acceptable to put them through the accounts\u201d. Van Zyl said the double debits had occurred over months. <\/p>\n
In a statement, Arrie Rautenbach from Absa Bank, said: \u201cOn Friday night March 15 FNB submitted a series of debit order instructions to Absa as part of their routine nightly interbank payment instructions. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese files were duly executed\u2026 Subsequently it has become apparent that some of these FNB instructions had not been authorised by Absa customers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe FNB error has led to customer inconvenience and may result in customers\u2019 accounts being overdrawn. Customers must please note that the submission of unauthorised debit orders is a contravention of the rules of the Payment Association of South Africa,\u201d the e-mail said. <\/p>\n
On the same national radio programme on Tuesday night, Rautenbach said the bank first noticed something was amiss when its call centres received a high volume of calls on Saturday morning. <\/p>\n
\u201cCan you imagine all these folk out happily shopping and suddenly their cards wouldn\u2019t work?\u201d <\/p>\n
Rautenbach reminded customers \u201cof their rights to dispute a debit order should they feel it is unauthorised\u201d. <\/p>\n
Kershia Singh, from Standard Bank, said the bank was working with FNB to establish the number of customers affected. <\/p>\n
colleen.dardagan@inl.co.za<\/strong> <\/p>\n The Mercury <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Independent Newspapers File image \u00a0 Durban – FNB could face thousands of legal cases and sanctions after it unlawfully removed hundreds of thousands of rand from thousands of bank accounts across South Africa this weekend in what has been described by a Durban businessman as \u201ca bloody disgrace\u201d. Since May, a computer glitch has seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-18841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}