Globaltimes 
N888.3m Illegally Withdrawn From Wema Bank
Operational glitch on core banking applications, leading to uninterrupted withdrawals of customers funds running to N888.3 million has marred 80th anniversary celebration of Wema Bank Plc.
Consequently, the only surviving indegenous commercial bank has run to the Federal High Court, in Lagos, in a bid to salvage the sum of N888,301,598.15 allegedly taken illegally from its coffers.
TheCaveat.com.ng can authoritatively report that Wema Bank Plc, has dragged no fewer than 26 financial institutions to the Federal High Court as defendants, urging it to issue a preservative order on the banks to salvage the unauthorized withdrawals funds.
In an affidavit written by the head of special Review & investigation of Wema Bank Plc, Kehinde Buari, in support of an application filed before the court by a Lagos lawyer, It was alleged that, Wema Bank Plc, experienced a system glitch on one of its core banking applications on 16th of January, 2025, which resulted in the unauthorised transfer of substantial funds from accounts held with the bank, as well as accounts held with the respective financial institutions dragged before the court.
After the incident, Wema Bank Plc, commenced tracing of the funds that were transferred without due authorization,while some of the funds have been traced internally, others have been traced to accounts held with the defendants /financial institutions.
The bank’s initial investigations led to the tracing of funds to accounts held with some of the defendants,further investigations revealed that the recipients of these funds attempted to dissipate, hide and or obscure same by moving part of the funds to some of the financial institutions.
The bank took immediate steps to notify the financial institutions of the glitch and the unauthorised transfers of funds from the bank’s customers’ accounts to accounts held with the defendants.
The bank requested the beneficiary accounts held with the defendants to be immediately restricted/sequestered, in order to protect/salvage the bank’s customers’ funds.
Some of the financial institutions immediately restricted the beneficiary accounts and sequestered/salvaged a significant portion of the funds that were transferred out of the plaintiff’s customers’accounts without authorisation.
The total amount salvaged by the said defendants is N888,301,598.15 (Eight Hundred and Eighty-Eight Million,Three Hundred and One Thousand, Five Hundred and Ninety-Eight Naira,Fifteen Kobo).
Further to the above, the bank’s Internal Audit and Legal Teams detailed the outcome of the ongoing investigations tracing the funds moved to accounts held with the defendants as a result of the system glitch.
Accordingly, an Internal Memo dated 16 January2025, and two summaries dated 20 January 2025 and 21 January 2025 were issued,showing:
i.Particulars of the sums transferred out of the bank’s customers’ accounts and traced to other accounts held with the bank as well as to accounts held by the respective defendant.
ii.Particulars of the beneficiary accounts in respect of the traced sums.
iii.Particulars of the sums salvaged by the respective defendants.
Respectively copies of the bank’s internal memo, dated 20 January 2025 and 21 January 2025 have been filed before the court.
The investigation into the unauthorised movement of funds continued after the investigations conducted above.
Mr. Buari stated further that he knows that the beneficiaries/recipients of the unauthorised funds attempted to disguise/obscure the source of the said funds by dissipating same through an intricate web of transfers.
Following the conclusion of further investigations, the plaintiff traced additional funds to the defendants.
Due to the complicated and intricate nature of the movement of the funds from Wema Bank, it became necessary to involve the Nigeria Inter-bank settlement system ( NIBSS).
The NIBSS promptly exchanged correspondence with the several banks on 16th January,2025, regarding funds traced to the said banks from Wema as a result of the system glitch
i.The total sums traced to and or salvaged by the respective defendants, particularly as shown in various Exhibits, ought to be returned to recovered by Wema from the respective defendants.
The financial institutions/defendants ought to return to the plaintiff, the total salvaged sum of N888,301,598.15 (Eight Hundred and Eighty-Eight Million, Three Hundred and One Thousand, Five Hundred and
Further to the above, the tracing of the millions of funds transferred without authorisation is still ongoing.
WEMA BANK has approached this honourable court in order to secure an order directing and enabling the respective defendants to return the affected funds to the bank.
The steps taken by the defendants are only temporary,pending the issuance of preservative,repatriation and further orders by the honourable court.
Further to the above steps,the plaintiff is required to obtain the relevant/necessary orders from this honourable court, failing which the defendants would be constrained to release the referenced/sequestered/salvaged funds.
Consequently,WEMA BANK, is seeking for:
An order directing/mandating the 26 financial institutions listed before the court to reverse/return to WEMA BANK PLC the total sum of money running into Billions of Naira as appearing in Exhibits attach to the affidavit in support of the originating summons.
An order directing/mandating each of the respective defendants to reverse/return to the plaintiff, any other/further sum of money, as may be traced and or salvaged from funds moved without authorization from accounts held with WEMA bank to accounts held with respective defendants, as a result of the system glitch that occurred on 16 January 2025.
An order directing/ mandating the respective management/ officers of the respective defendants to disclose to the plaintiff and or relevant law enforcement/regulatory agencies, all required/relevant particulars of account holders who have dissipated the sun’s transferred to Thier accounts without authorisation, for purposes of investigation and or recovery.
An order directing/mandating the respective
management/officers of the respective defendants to place on the Central Bank of Nigeria Credit Risk Management System List and any other Watchlist,the Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) of all account holders who have dissipated the sums transferred to their accounts without authorisation, until the full recovery of the dissipated funds by the plaintiff.
Culled from TheCaveat.com.ng
