By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A customer of Access Bank Plc, Mr Junaid Sanusi, has filed a suit against the financial institution over fees charged to his account with the company.
In the suit brought before Justice Uche Agomog, the plaintiff, a legal practitioner, claimed that the lender, headed by Mr Roosevelt Ogbonna, was deducting from his account what is not authorised by the Finance Act, which should be N50 one-off for transactions above N10,000.
“What is provided in the Finance Act is that banks should deduct N50 one-off for transactions above N10,000, but I noticed that the bank deducts N100, N250 and so on from my account as FGN electronic levy,” he informed the court.
He then asked the court to direct Access Bank to pay him N100 million as “exemplary damages for wrongful deductions it made in favour of FGN without my authorisation,” and also sought an order to restrain the lender from further deductions until the case was determined.
Mr Sanusi argued that any deduction on customers’ accounts must be subjected to the 2020 guidelines of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other Financial Institutions Acts, emphasising that these guidelines remained the only law allowing banks to make deductions from accounts of their customers.
“The court needs to determine whether or not it is lawful for the defendant to make unauthorised deductions from my account in favour of FGN or another third party than the one allowed under the CBN guidelines and Finance Act for bank charges,” he said.
Before the matter was adjourned for judgement for November 12, 2024, by Justice Agomog, Access Bank, through its counsel, Mr Ahmed Adeleke, in a counter-affidavit, pointed out that a review of the plaintiff’s three-month statement of account between March 1, 2020 and May 29, 2020, the bank did charge more than the amount stipulated by the law going by his transactions in the period under review.
