Business and Technology

FNB denies it is charging bank fees for reversing its ‘free money’ mistake

First National Bank (FNB) says it is not charging clients a reversal fee for taking back the “free” money accidentally reflected in their accounts earlier this week – despite a number of such claims on social media from angry customers.

Customers who believe they are seeing such charges are mistaken, Christoph Nieuwoudt, FNB’s consumer CEO said.

There are no fees because there has been no reversal on affected accounts, he said.

“The monies that were in clients accounts were not deposits, in the same way, that FNB correcting the transaction is not a reversal.”

Instead, the balances on accounts changed due to delays in processing debit card transactions, the bank says.

FNB believes a combination of factors, including the long weekend that included the 15th of the month, may have caused confusion.

Debit orders scheduled for the 15th of the month – and the associated fees for those transactions – were pending over the weekend, and completed this week, the bank says. That means such fees would have reflected in account statements shortly after FNB’s free money issue.

This, the bank says, could have led to the belief that normal fees were linked to the changes customers saw in their account balances.

“We are willing to work with each customer on an individual basis to help them understand where their ‘fees’ come from,” Nieuwoudt says.

Clients who received money from FNB on Tuesday, in the form of apparently available balances, only to have that money apparently taken away again on Wednesday, were not impressed when they saw fees they believed associated with the fiasco.

FNB could have just pulled the biggest heist in plain sight. It’s kinda like authorizing a small loan without your concern then reversing it but charging reversal fees.

You might also like… The best SIM-only data deals – MTN vs Vodacom vs Cell C vs Telkom

The high price of mobile data is a common complaint among South Africans, who want networks to make access to mobile internet more affordable.

According to Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub, one of the main reasons for high data prices is a lack of spectrum allocation by the government.

Data Deals

“Lengthy delays in completing the digital migration and allocating 4G spectrum has curbed the pace at which data prices could have fallen,” said Joosub. continue reading…

Source – Business Insider