The number of customers who filed complaints against their financial institutions increased by 63.54% from 6.12 million recorded in 2022 to over 10 million in 2023.
Most of the complaints include dispense errors, uncredited NIP, erroneous transfers, etc.
An analysis of their audited financial results carried out by The Punch showed that the larger chunk of the complaints came from customers of Access Holdings, United Bank for Africa, Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Holding Company and Wema Bank.
Nigerian banks with the highest customer complaints
Here is a comprehensive report on the analysis;
1. Access Bank
The complaints by customers of AccessCorp, one of Nigeria’s biggest banks rose by 81.26% in 2023 to 5,120,653 from 2,824,979 in 2022. The bank further made a refund of ₦2.07bn from the resolved cases.
Access group also recorded 28,801 complaints in dollar transactions, 328 complaints involving the British pound sterling and 335 complaints in euro transactions.
2. UBA
The number of complaints filed by UBA customers increased from 1,408,062 in 2022, to 2,962,339 in 2023. The group also claimed that about 80 complaints were escalated to the Central Bank of Nigeria for intervention.
No refunds were made in foreign currency transactions but the bank however made refunds of ₦450 million from the filed complaints.
3. Wema Bank
Complaints from the banks’ customers increased by about 54.03% from 401,179 in 2022, to 617,941 in 2023.
The bank also claimed that in 2022, it had 13,642 pending complaints while ₦10.27billion was refunded.
At the end of 2023, the total number of resolved complaints stood at 621,609 out of which ₦11.26 billion was refunded.
4. Zenith Bank
The volume of complaints sent in by Zenith Bank customers reduced by about 25.29% from 475,499 recorded in 2022 to 355,210 recorded in 2023. The bank also made refunds of ₦15.486 billion during the period.
5. GTCO
Just like Zenith Bank, GTCO customers’ complaints in 2023 dropped to 946,169 from 1,006,380 recorded in 2022.
The bank further claimed that 953,548 complaints were resolved at the end of the year, while the sum of ₦277.45million was refunded.
GTCO further claimed that $202,617 was claimed in dollar transactions, £7,128 in Pounds sterling and €10.01million in Euros.