Suspected Fraud Attack at Chase Bank Leaves Customers Stranded

A suspected fraud attack at Chase Bank has reportedly paralyzed key services at the lending institution in the last five days.

Since Sunday, customers have not been able to access key services such as debit card transactions and mobile cash transfer services.

Only over-the-counter services including issuance of chequebooks, cheque deposits, cash deposits, withdrawals and electronic transfer services have been available.

On Tuesday, SBM Bank Group acting CEO Jotham Mutoka confirmed that Chase Bank was experiencing an outage that affected some of the bank’s services. He said the technical hitch was not connected to the transition of Chase Bank’s banking platform to Mauritius' SBM Holdings’ new platform.

Business Daily reports that the bank's customers reported irregular transactions in their accounts, pointing out to a possible hacking of its systems.

Godfrey Simiyu Katiambo, a Chase Bank customer said his account was locked after Sh150,000 was anonymously wired into it by an unknown source.

“When I reported the case on Monday at Ngara branch I was detained for four hours,” he said.

He said he was handed to Central Bank of Kenya's anti-banking fraud officers who recorded his statement. “I can’t access my money. The bank is just telling me to wait,” said Katiambo.

Police records show that Kenyan financial institutions lost Sh17 billion to fraudsters in 2016, up from Sh14 billion in 2015.