- Ethiopia’s largest commercial bank is racing to recover large amounts of money withdrawn by customers following a “systems glitch.”
- Reports from local media suggest that over $40 million (£31 million) was withdrawn or transferred to other banks.’
- The bank took several hours to halt transactions and address the issue.
Customers realized early on Saturday that they could withdraw more cash than their account balances at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), BBC reported.
Reports from local media suggest that over $40 million (£31 million) was withdrawn or transferred to other banks.
The bank took several hours to halt transactions and address the issue.
Bank president Abe Sano revealed to journalists on Monday that a large portion of the withdrawn funds came from state-owned CBE accounts, mostly by students.
The news of the glitch quickly spread across universities through messaging apps and phone calls.
At campus ATMs, long queues formed as students rushed to withdraw money. A student in western Ethiopia informed BBC Amharic that people were withdrawing funds until police officers arrived on campus to intervene.
CBE, established 82 years ago, serves over 38 million account holders.
Ethiopia’s central bank, responsible for overseeing the financial sector, issued a statement attributing the incident to a “glitch” during routine “maintenance and inspection activities.”
The statement primarily addressed the service interruption following CBE’s freeze on all transactions, omitting details about the funds withdrawn by customers.
Although Mr. Sano didn’t specify the exact amount withdrawn during Saturday’s incident, he assured that the losses were minimal compared to the bank’s overall assets.
He stressed that CBE wasn’t targeted by a cyber-attack, and reassured customers that their accounts remained unaffected and urged them not to be alarmed.
Several universities have issued statements urging students to return any funds they withdrew from CBE that didn’t belong to them.
Mr. Sano clarified that individuals returning the money wouldn’t face criminal charges. However, the extent of the bank’s success in recovering the funds remains uncertain.
