Centenary Bank has finally spoken out on the recent “ATM issue” that had many of its customers worried.
Addressing the media at a press conference held at their head offices on Mapeera House in Kampala yesterday, Centenary Bank MD Fabian Kasi revealed that all their customers will first have to change their ATM access PIN to be able to make ATM cash withdrawals again. He added that the ATM access PIN change was instituted following complaints from their customers who cited irregularities on their accounts.
Following the complaints, the bank had also temporarily reduced the ATM cash withdrawal limit to 100K in a bid to prevent huge money losses to their customers as they launched an investigation into the issues raised by their customers.
According to Fabian, the preliminary investigation revealed that the inconsistencies on their customers’ accounts could have been as a result of the system upgrades that were carried out over the weekend and the bank was not hacked as earlier speculated in sections of the media.
Here’s the full statement from the bank:
“Centenary Bank wishes to update its esteemed customers and the public of the ongoing ATM access PIN change.
We received complaints from 25 customers regarding inconsistencies on their bank balances with the bank.
We conducted preliminary investigations and found out that this could have been as a result of our system upgrade that the bank regularly undertakes to improve its services to customers.
As part of efforts to address the inconsistencies, we instigated a temporary ATM cash withdraw limit to shs100,000 for 24 hours. However, all limits have since returned to the normal levels and all clients are transacting normally.
Secondly, the bank decided to block all customer ATM PINs and requested the customers that want to withdraw over the ATM platform to first reset their ATM PINs. This exercise is currently going on in all our 63 branches and it takes a maximum of only one minute.
As a result of this change, we are experiencing high traffic within our branches which we are managing by deploying more staff and the necessary equipment to speed up service delivery.
One of Centenary Bank’s strength is in its ability to quickly detect risks and work on them instantly to avoid loss. This is a bank that enables clients to quickly detect whether there are inconsistent transactions on their accounts so that they can instantly notify the bank. This is majorly through our SMS alert service. Therefore we wish to reaffirm to our customers that their deposits are safe and our operations are on-going normally.
We advise our clients to also make use of our alternative channels including CenteMobile. Customers who wish to update their ATM PINs are advised to visit any of our branches with a valid ID to change your ATM access PINs.”
BigEyeUg Staff