MTN Nigeria’s fintech subsidiary, Momo Payment Service Bank Limited, has approached a Nigerian court seeking an order to recover funds erroneously transferred to several bank customers after a technical glitch affected its system.
According to reports, the PSB is seeking a court order in its bid to retrieve an alleged sum transferred to the customers of 18 commercial banks.
The suit marked FHC/L/CS/960/2022 and filed on May 30, 2022, disclosed that the PSB had asked the court to declare the deposits worth N22.3bn belongs to it (Momo PSB) and not the banks’ customers.
According to a report by TheCable, the payment said, “A declaration that the deposits of an aggregate sum of N22,300,000,000.00 erroneously transferred by the plaintiff to the accounts of the customers of the defendant banks, having been done in error, belongs to the plaintiff and not the customers of the defendant banks.
“An order directing the defendant banks to each, individually, account for the sums available in their customers’ accounts and the sums which have been removed by the customers and are no longer available.
“An order directing the defendants’ banks to immediately return the aggregate sum of N22,300,000,000.00, less those funds that are no longer available, to the plaintiffs’ settlement account in the name Momo PSB settlement account number: 2041379385 at First Bank Plc Samuel Asabia House 35 Marina, Lagos, from where the funds originated.
“An order directing the defendant banks to release all information, including account name information in respect of the accounts from which the plaintiff’s funds have been transferred to third parties, including the destination accounts and the banks in which they are held to assist in the tracing and recovery of those funds.”
An MTN spokesman, Funso Aina, could not be reached for comments as of the time of filing this report.
However, a top official of MTN confirmed the development.
The official said, “The amount lost isn’t up to that, but we were the ones that approached the court.
“It is true, this happened over a month ago and was as a result of a technical glitch from the system.
“The system erroneously sent money to some people, and we notified the bank, asking them to reverse it as it was an error. The bank knows but they asked us to approach the court to get a court order. The thing is no money was lost, and no subscriber or customer suffered any loss.
“The money is already in the bank and as we know any money that has passed the system can be retrieved. The money is far less than N22bn. There was a glitch for about a month now and if people have lost money, they would have complained. It is factual.”