Another Fraud Scandal Hits Stanbic Bank, Suspends all Online Transactions

Stanbic Bank has been hit by another fraud, a week after being on the spot for allegedly selling a client's mortgaged properties to the bank’s top employees.

According to sources, Stanbic Bank has been experiencing a fraudulent system failure where the Bank was unknowingly sending unspecified sums of money to different mobile money users through their bank to wallet service. Sources within the Bank say this is a suspected online fraud which is currently being investigated.

Apparently, it is alleged that some unscrupulous people hacked into the Bank’s system and started wiring money into other people’s mobile money and bank accounts.

As a result, the Bank has suspended all online banking transactions as they restore the system. In a message that has been sent to all its account holders, the Bank has apologized and pledged to restore the service as soon as possible. The online system has been down since Friday last week.

“Dear customer, transactions for bills payments, Bank to wallet and wallet to Bank cannot be processed at this time. We apologise and are working to restore this service,” reads the message.

When this reporter attempted to follow up with the Bank, it emerged that all customers have been affected and cannot access this online service. Apparently, if one attempted to send money from his or her Stanbic Bank account to another person’s mobile money or account number then both the accounts of the sender and money receiver will be automatically blocked.

The move to block the accounts is to allow the Bank to investigate and verify to be sure that the money sent was authorized by the sender and not as a result of system failure from the Bank.

On 23rd September 2020, Beatrice Odongo, a Director at Macdowel Ltd wrote to Special Investigations Division, Criminal Investigations Directorate, calling for a special investigation alleging that top employees of Stanbic Bank sold a mortgaged property to themselves even after the client (Beatrice Odongo) paid the loan. The property in question is MaCdowel Apartments that are located in Luzira.

The top bosses in the alleged fraud are; Kenneth Kitungulu-Executive and Head Global Markets-Stanbic, Florence Kaweesa-Global Business Manager-Stanbic Bank, Allan Muhinda-Interest Rates Dealer-Stanbic Bank, Daisy Nitwe-Corporate Treasurer-Sales Dealer-Stanbic Bank, Emmanuel Luteba-Head Products and Analytics –Stanbic, Maureen Kembabazi Katwebaze-Works with Stanbic IBTC Bank, Nigeria and Thaib Lubega-formerly Treasury Manager-Stanbic Bank Uganda.

In a statement, the Bank pledged to work with the investigators to help settle the matter, but declined to go into the merits of the case because it is before courts of law.