Nigerians blast Access Bank over deduction

Nigerians have reacted to the plan by Access Bank Plc, decision to debit accumulated stamp duty charges from customers’ accounts.

This will be carried on accounts from Feb 1, 2020 to  April 30th, 2020 due to an error in its operations records.

According to an email that was sent by Access Bank to its customers, the accrued N50 stamp duty charge will be debited from applicable customers’ accounts for remittance to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

Concerned customers were, therefore, advised to keep enough money in their bank accounts in order to accommodate the charge.

“We recently discovered that the charges on applicable transactions carried out between February 1, 2020, and April 30, 2020, were inadvertently not passed on your account. We sincerely apologise for this.

“However, in compliance with the CBN mandate, we will be required to process the accumulated charges for the said period on your account for remittance to the Central Bank of Nigeria. We request that you fund your account to accommodate this charge,” part of the email from the bank said.

As the email by Access Bank further explained, the Central Bank of Nigeria requires that a stamp duty charge of N50 be imposed on savings and current account holders for transactions (both deposits and electronic transfers) exceeding N10, 000.

The N50 stamp duty charge was reviewed in the Federal Government’s latest finance bill which took effect earlier this year. The revision is such that instead of customers would be required to pay the N50 stamp duty only if their deposits or transfers exceed N10,000. This is against an earlier (controversial) practice of imposing a stamp duty of N50 for every deposit/transfer exceeding only N1,000.

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Among those that have reacted is a Tiwtter user Queen Vee.

“So I was gifted the sum of 500k by a good fellow. On my way to deposit the money into my Access bank account,this boy came to wake me up to give him my phone to play game. I’m so pissed this morning,” she said.

Another Twitter user compared the bank to others.

“I abandoned my Gtb account cos of this same ish. I specifically indicated boldly on the account opening form that I don’t need an atm card but Alas! I was texted to come pick my atm card,” said Plain Tees Republic.