One of South Africa’s major banks, First National Bank (FNB), has led other banks in the country in receiving the majority of the 6,000 complaints that customers have lodged against the sector in 2019, APA learnt on Friday.
According to the annual report from the Banking Services Ombudsman made available to APA on Friday, the FNB is closely followed by Standard Bank, Nedbank and Capitec banks in the complaints column.
The report, however, declined to show specific numbers of the FNB’s complaints – only saying that more than 6,000 formal cases were opened in 2019 against the entire banking sector.
Banking Services Ombudsman Reana Steyn said internet banking, credit card and ATM fraud drew the most complaints.
“I think it is very informative to look at our top three categories of complaints as led by internet banking fraud, followed by credit card fraud and ATM operations being the third category,” she said.
She noted that the top three categories were all related to crime issues that the banks did not settle to the satisfaction of the customers.
“This led them to come to us for assistance,” she said, adding that the complaints are expected to increase this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, she added.
Steyn urged customers to make sure they made the necessary financial arrangements with their banks during the pandemic.
NM/jn/APA