€50 million stolen from mobile money payment service
The Mobile Money (Momo) payment service pioneered by the MTN Group has been taken for a fifty million Euro (N22.3 billion) sting on its network, reports Nigerian news site BluePrint. Records of a writ seen by Blueprint, by the mobile money service against 18 traditional banks, revealed that an aggregate sum of N22,300,000,000, equivalent to €50m or $53.7m, was wrongly transferred to customer accounts in 18 different banks in Nigeria.
18 banks
In a summons dated May 30, 2022 and filed before a Federal High Court, MTN’s Momo is seeking a court declaration that the deposits of N22.3 billion, allegedly transferred in error, belong to MTN’s Momo PSB and not to the customers of the banks. The requests are part of a suit filed by a senior advocate of Nigeria, Chief Lotanna Chuka Okoli, on behalf of Momo Payment Service Bank Limited. The MTN bank is also seeking an order of the court directing the 18 banks to individually account for the sums available in their customer accounts. The sums have been removed by the customers and are no longer available.
700,000 transactions
In an affidavit in support of the originating summons, CEO Anthony Usoro claimed that Momo is the bona fide owner of the aggregate sum of N22.3B which is maintained in its Momo settlement account. On the 24th day of May, 2022, he said, it was noticed that funds had been erroneously transferred from its settlement account to various accounts maintained by the 18 banks. Usuro further claimed that around 700, 000 transactions were processed with credits made into about 8,000 accounts in the listed 18 banks. Once alerted to the incident, the management shut down the service to limit the impact and engaged the banks to recover the money from the ‘beneficiaries’. The transfers were an error, said Usuro.
Refund sought
The Momo CEO’s affidavit requested for an order of court to reverse the credits made to the customers and asked the Federal High Court for a N22.3 billion refund. The legal filing also asked the court to order the banks to provide information about these ‘customers’. MPSBL is contending that, “under the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Regulation on Instant (Inter-Bank) Electronic Funds Transfer Services, made pursuant to Sections 2(D), 33(1)6) and 47(2) of the CBN Act 2007, it is incumbent on the 18 banks to make refund and provide the required information.” The affected banks are listed as defendants in the suit marked: FHC/L/CS/960/2022.