Access Bank Refunds Customers’ Stamp Duty Charges

Access Bank has started to reverse the stamp duty charges paid by its customers from February to April.

It also said deductions made between Saturday and Sunday would be reversed to customers.

Recall, the deductions had elicited outrage from the customers, and the bank’s customers had taken various social media platforms to complained on Saturday and Sunday over stamp duty deductions.

In a statement on Sunday, the bank said it recognized that it is a tough period for customers and would instead pay the charges to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on their behalf.

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The bank noted that while it would still have to remit the money to the federal government, it acknowledged its mistake by debiting its customers late.

“We have considered your feedback and have decided to pay the stamp duty on our customers’ behalf for the affected period only,” the bank said in a statement.

“This means that individuals and SMEs who were debited for the accumulated stamp duty charge for February to April 2020 will be refunded.

“While we still have to remit these funds via the CBN to the federal government, we realise that we got it wrong by debiting our customers late, and we are refunding the affected stamp duty charge today to all affected customers.

“We hope this gesture goes some way to make this better.”

In an earlier statement, the bank had notified customers that it did not deduct stamp duty charges on transactions that occurred between February 1, 2020, and April 30, 2020.

The 2019 finance act provides that bank customers pay a N50 charge on every N10,000 deposit.

Confirming this, one of the bank customers named Adegoke Folakemi told Business Remarks that she received the refund stamp duty charge alert yesterday as at 10:30pm.

Folake who said she was earlier debited #700 for stamp duty charge had lamented on how sad she felt immediately after the debit alert.

According to her, she has silently vowed to stop patronizing the bank, even though she knew it was the accumulated charges the bank removed at once.

However she noted that with the refund her respect for the bank has increased.

“Access Bank just show they respect and listen to their customers”, she said.