GCB Bank probes unapproved withdrawal of monies

GCB Bank has begun investigations into conditions under which monies were withdrawn from customers accounts by some unknown persons.

Some customers of the bank have been complaining that unspecified amounts were withdrawn from their accounts without their permission over the weekend.

The incident is said to have occurred on Friday when some customers randomly received text messages signifying that money had been debited from their accounts. It is not known how and who were behind the deductions.

All ATM’s of the bank was then shut down by management to avoid further withdrawals. It is not evident how many customers have been affected and the total amount of money withdrawn.

One of the affected customers, Beatrice Goddard told Citi Business News monitored by Prime News Ghana, a total of GHS4500 has been withdrawn from her accounts.

“I actually didn’t know anything was happening, Sunday around 3: 30 pm I was washing and then I had an SMS alert, that GHS500 had been withdrawn from my account. When I checked my balance against the money that had been withdrawn, it was a total of GHS4500. But before the message came, they had sent a message round that their ATMs are having problems so they’ve shut it down,” she said.

She narrated further that “So Monday morning I went to the head office where I had withdrawn money on the Friday. And they told me that yes they know their place had been hacked and that a lot of people had come in with complaints.”

The bank confirmed the incident to Citi News monitored by Prime News Ghana, Head of Corporate Affairs at GCB Bank, Tara Obuobi says management is strengthening the bank’s security system to prevent further withdrawals.

“I think late Friday evening it came to our attention that some customers have had their accounts compromised in a way. And this had happened to ATM so we quickly shut down our ATM. But I as I speak with you our ATMs are back working and our customers can use their MasterCard and Visa card and then our proprietary ready cash card can all be used while investigations go on.”

The bank has also assured it will refund the money to affected customers after a validation process.

“Yesterday we gave ourselves between 24 to 48 hours within which we will refund those monies to them so by now they should have started receiving those refunds".

GCB Bank has however apologized to affected customers and assured their accounts are safe.

“And May I use this opportunity to apologize to our customers sincerely for what happened and we know that for we moving from mag-stripe card to chip-based cards would is going to secure our system even further, ” she noted.

Ghana News: Latest news in Ghana