How To Make Complaint Against A Bank In Nigeria (2024)

If you have had your money deducted from your account for no reason or your funds reduced outlandishly, then no need to panic. Moreover,  if your bank isn’t taking the case serious and wouldn’t resolve the issue, you can opt to making a complaint to the higher authority. This should be addressed to the Central Bank of Nigeria which is the controller of all the financial institutions and every monetary organization in the country. This write-up will give a detailed guide on how to make a complaint against your bank to the CBN.

Along your banking with any commercial bank or financial institution, you may experience some hitch against your account with them. Such cases may occur if you are denied interest on your investment funds, or you had unauthorized ATM or POS transaction on your account. Or on the other hand lost your investment funds to fraudsters and scammers. If any of these or others was the case, then you ought to make a petition to your bank.

Nonetheless, if your bank isn’t responding, you can then report to the CBN. The Central Bank of Nigeria Consumer Protection Department suggests that you first exhaust the option of making a complaint in your bank on such activity before you involve them.

HOW TO MAKE COMPLAINTS AGAINST YOUR BANK IN NIGERIA

Here is the guide on how and where you can hold up a grievance against your bank. This must be a recognized financial institutions managed by the Central Bank of Nigeria like Commercial Banks, Microfinance Banks, Primary Mortgage Institutions and Discount Houses.

STEP 1: CONTACT YOUR BANK FIRST

On the off chance that you have a complaint against a Nigerian bank, you must initially report the situation to your immediate bank. After that is done, then allow fourteen days (it very well may be less in certain Nigerian banks) for the issue to be resolved. Moreover, your complaint ought to be attended to, because the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) gave an order guiding all banks in Nigeria to extend their current help desk to deal with a wide range of customer grievances.

When you contact your bank, below are tips to note when you want to write a letter of complaint to the bank.

• Start the letter by addressing it to the manager of the banks’ branch.
• State the duration on how long you have been their client.
• Provide details about yourself and your account such as your account number and any other info that might be requested.
• Explain the problem you encountered in details and request for a quick solution.
• Provide and attach evidence such as documents, text messages, mails, etc to proof that show your grievance.
• Suggest solution to the pending issue if you have one.
• Do not use threatening or sarcastic language when writing the letter.
• Be clear and concise, using polite and professional language.
• Provide your contact information so as the bank can reach you after solution is provided.

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR BANK FAILS TO RESOLVE THE COMPLAINT

In the event that your bank actually neglects to draw in you and resolve the complaint under the 14 days (two weeks) as stipulated in the ATM Help Desk Circular, you reserve the right to heighten your objection to the Consumer Protection Department (CPD) of the Central Bank of Nigeria. At that point, you will be making the complaint against your bank.

STEP 2: MAKING COMPLAINTS TO CONSUMER PROTECTION DEPARTMENT (CPD)

The next step is to direct your complaints to the Central Bank upon failure of your bank/financial institution to determine your complaint inside the fourteen days course of events given by the CBN.

You might be asking, does the CPD deal with a wide range of complaints? The answer to this query is that CBN manages all monetary related objections so far as it is against Banks and Financial Institutions inside its administrative domain.

HOW TO CONTACT CBN CONSUMER PROTECTION DEPARTMENT

You can reach the Central Bank of Nigeria CPD through the following channels:

• Email: cpd@cbn.gov.ng. All complaints duly written should be forwarded to the department’s mail address.
• Letter: Director, Consumer Protection Department. Your letter of Complaint ought to be addressed to the Director, Consumer Protection Department. You can present your letter at the CBN Head Office OR at any of the Central Bank of Nigeria branches across the country.
• Address: Central Business District, Abuja. On the off chance that you live in Lagos, the CBN has an office on Lagos Island.
• Applying From CBN Website Directly: In the event that you would prefer not to compose long syntax, the Central Bank of Nigeria on its site gives a platform to send down the complaint to them. It’s simply a click away: https://www.cbn.gov.ng/Contacts/Complaints/.

If you aren’t near of CBN branch, you can send a mail to the Consumer Protection Department. Also, you can navigate to the above mentioned link in order to access their website directly. If you’re near Abuja and Lagos, just drop the letter at the offices of the CBN. The workers there are open and will help you process the complaint against your bank. We anyway exhorts that letter writing works better.

WRITING AN EFFECTIVE BANK COMPLAINTS LETTER TO THE CBN

Since this is a official letter, you can’t just pen down anything you like. There is a particular pattern and way in which you should make a complaint to the CBN Consumer Protection Department. Definitely, your complaint ought to be clear and brief to keep away from any ambiguity. The Complaint letter (petition) ought to contain in addition to other things the following:

1. Name, Address, Contact Phone Number and E-mail of the Complainant;
2. Name of your Bank or Financial Institution;
3. Personal financial details (Do exclude PIN and Passwords, please;)
4. History/Date of the transaction in debate;
5. Amount claimed (assuming any);
6. Attach pertinent records to help your case and;
7. Evidence to show that you have first lodged the complaint to your bank.

That’s how to write a effective bank complaint letter to the CBN Consumer Protection Department. This also serve as a guide on the prerequisites to make a petition against your bank in Nigeria.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has always advised customers to give recognised deposit money banks about two weeks to resolve their complaints. It’s after lodging your complaint and your bank fails to give you a valid resolve of the complaint within 2 weeks, then you have the right to escalate and lodge your complaint to the Consumer Protection Department (CPD) of the CBN by sending an email to cpd@cbn.gov.ng, contactcbn@cbn.gov.ng or call +234 7002255226.

CONCLUSION

Normally, bank transactions by and large occur swiftly and without any issues. Anyway, there are times when the bank comes up short in its services to you, or there is some sort of issue which you need put in place. Because of the mature of the service the bank gives to you – managing your cash, when things turn out badly, it can to be sure be a very disappointing and upsetting time.

Most banks have set up their individual customer complaint/handling systems, and that’s a platform set up for clients to channel any complaints. The sad thing is that some banks may insensitive in taking the complaints. That is the reason we have composed this write-up, to spread out the means customers ought to follow when they need to submit complaints regarding their financial institution in the country. That’s the size of this article, as we have been able to outline the process in details.