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Banks defrauded customers of N6b in 2012 – Sanusi

By on April 12, 2013

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it has recovered over N6 billion for customers that were cheated by banks in the last one year.

CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who disclosed this on Thursday, said the feat was achieved by the apex bank’s Director of Consumer Protection whom he described as ruthless and hard working.

Sanusi spoke in a keynote paper he delivered at the 2013 Isaac Moghalu Foundation (IMOF) Leadership Lecture and Symposium in Abuja.

In his words, “The director of consumer protection has recovered over N6 billion in the last one year for customers that were cheated by banks; she takes the sides of banks’ customers even when I plead with her to be gentle with the banks, she is very ruthless.

“And when I see the evidence she has of how these banks have defrauded customers, I have no option than to allow her debit their accounts so that the customers would be refunded,” Sanusi said.

Sanusi said it was to strengthen its customer relations mechanism that the apex bank recently set up a Consumer and Financial Protection Department to protect the interest of customers with a view to promoting their confidence in the banking industry.

The CBN boss also unveiled a new policy guideline requiring banks to ensure at least 30 per cent women representation in their boards effective 2014 as part of efforts to correct the existing lopsided gender imbalance in their management and boards.

Sanusi said such a measure had become imperative in view of the need to allow women exhibit their professional and other competencies in the banking sector, adding that the policy should also be encouraged in other sectors for sustainable national development.

While lamenting prolonged years of discrimination against women at all levels of the society despite their huge productive potentials and demonstrated capacities to add value despite militating constraints, Sanusi also said the CBN was leading the agenda in a number of ways, including promotion of competent women to directorship positions and re-orientation trainings for employees on gender issues, as a means of creating a level playing field for all staff to rise to the highest levels in the institution.

For instance, he disclosed that whereas in the 50 years of the CBN operations up to 2009 there were only four women that rose to the position of Directors but that since he became Governor, the board had promoted seven women to directors and ensured that they function in departments that hitherto were believed to be the exclusive preserves for men.

According to him, the regulatory banking institution had already secured the banks’ consent to ensure that by 2014 at least 30 per cent of the board of banks are going to be women and also that at least 40 per cent of the top management of banks are women.

 

(  Daily Independent )