GCB Bank has started investigating circumstances under which monies were withdrawn from customers accounts by some unknown persons.
This was after some customers of the bank started complaining that unspecified amounts were withdrawn from their accounts without their permission over the weekend.
On Friday some customers randomly received text messages informing them that money had been withdrawn from their accounts. It is currently not known how and who was behind the deductions. It is also not clear how many customers have been affected and the total amount of money withdrawn.
The management of the bank shut down all ATMs to avoid further withdrawals.
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One of the affected customers, Beatrice Goddard told Accra-based Citi FM that a total of GHS4500 has been withdrawn from her accounts.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know anything was happening, Sunday around 3: 30 pm I was washing and then I had an SMS alert, that GHS500 had been withdrawn from my account. When I checked my balance against the money that had been withdrawn, it was a total of GHS4500.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.”
“So Monday morning I went to the head office where I had withdrawn money on the Friday.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,” she added.
The Head of Corporate Affairs at GCB Bank, Tara Obuobi confirmed the incident and added that the 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.”
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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."
“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 added.