MTN Vs Banks: GSM Firm Drags 18 Banks To Court Over N22bn

By Tosin Olatokunbo

Mobile telephone company, Mobile Telecommunications Network, MTN has dragged 18 commercial banks in the country to court in its quest to recover over N22 billion from them.

The sum the South African firm, said in a court document seen by the magazine was erroneously transferred from its financial tech subsidiary, Momo Payment Service Bank Limited, Momo PSB, into the banks.

The banks listed as defendants in the suit include Ecobank, Fidelity Bank Access Bank, First Bank, First City Monument Bank, FCMB and Guaranty Trust Bank.

Others are Zenith Bank, Heritage Bank, Polaris Bank and Providus Bank, StanbicIBTC, Standard Chartered, Sterling Bank, Suntrust Bank, Union Bank, United Bank for Africa, UBA, Unity Bank and Wema Bank.

The transfer error occurred barely few days after the CBN licensed the telephone mobile operator to operate as a payment service bank, PSB.

Many financial analysts insist that the recently licensed PSB operators still have a lot to learnt from the existing commercial bank in other to be able to operate seamlessly.

According to a suit marked FHC/L/CS/960/2022 and filed on May 30, 2022, the PSB asked the court to order the banks to return N22. 3 billion transferred to the banks’ customers.

Among other reliefs, the PSB is asking for: “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,” the court filing reads.

“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.”

The managing director of Momo PSB, Usoro Usoro disclosed in the summons that his firm had last month discovered that 700,000 transactions were processed, with credits made into about 8,000 various customers’ accounts in the affected 18 banks.

The Momo PSB, he said, had since shut down operations to manage the situation.