Fidelity Bank Plc says it will seek amicable resolution with Nigeria’s data protection regulator after it was slammed with a ₦555.8 million fine over alleged data privacy violations.
Dr Vincent Olatunji, National Commissioner/CEO, Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), announced on Wednesday in Abuja that the regulator imposed the fine on Fidelity Bank after its investigations revealed that the bank allegedly processed personal data without the informed consent of over one million users of its banking app.
“As a bank, we remain in discussions with the NDPC over an amicable resolution to this matter,” Dr Meksley Nwagboh, Divisional Head, Brand & Communications, Fidelity Bank, says today in a statement made available to Technology Times.
Nwagboh, who defends his bank over the allegation, says that Fidelity Bank is in talks with NDPC.
On May 2nd 2023, we responded to the NDPC that the bank did not violate any law because there was no data breach and that the account opening process was not completed. On our part, we carried out due diligence by immediately blocking the account and subsequently closing the account when we did not receive the outstanding documents.
Dr Meksley Nwagboh, Divisional Head, Brand & Communications, Fidelity Bank Plc.
“While the matter is a subject of an ongoing engagement with the regulator, we wish to assure the public that we have conducted ourselves to the highest ethical standards by ensuring full compliance with extant laws on data protection.”
The Fidelity Bank spokesman, who gave his bank’s side of the story, provides a chronology of its engagements with the data protection regulator that culminated in the alleged data privacy penalty.
“On April 30th, 2023, we received a notice of investigation from the Nigerian Data Protection Agency (NDPA), now the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC). The investigation was in respect of a complaint from [name has been withheld to protect the identity of the complainant] who claimed that [name withheld] details were used to open an account in the bank without [name withheld] consent,” the statement says.
Fidelity Bank: A chronology of talks with NDPC over alleged data breaches
Following the NDPC notice, Nwagboh, the bank conducted an internal investigation into the circumstances around the claim and discovered as follows:
o An account opening request was received online in the name of [name withheld], and an email was sent to the email address attached to the request informing them about this.
o In compliance with our Data Protection policy, accounts created online without full documentation are not allowed to be operational and are closed after 30 days if the outstanding documents are not provided to authenticate the identity of the person seeking to open the account.
o In compliance with our data protection laws, the account was not allowed to be operational as the passport photograph and BVN were not provided.
o The account was immediately placed on “Post No Debit” status as the applicant was expected to complete the account opening process by providing the outstanding documents for verification within 30 days. This was not done, and the account was eventually closed.
• On May 2nd 2023, we responded to the NDPC that the bank did not violate any law because there was no data breach and that the account opening process was not completed. On our part, we carried out due diligence by immediately blocking the account and subsequently closing the account when we did not receive the outstanding documents.
• At no point in the process was the account ever operational.
• On July 7th, 2023, we were invited for a Pre-Action meeting with NDPC. During the meeting, we restated our position as earlier communicated to them in our letter dated May 2nd.
• However, despite our explanation and evidence provided to support our claim, the agency informed us that they had reached a conclusion to impose a penalty on the bank.
• On 5th December of 2023, we got a letter from NDPC demanding we pay a ‘remedial fee’ of ₦250 million within 21 days.
• We immediately commenced another round of engagements with the Commission as we were convinced, we had not breached any extant law or regulation.
• While discussions were still ongoing with the NDPC, we received another letter on the 20th of August demanding that we now pay ₦555.8 million.
According to Fidelity Bank, “as a responsible financial organisation with a history of strong corporate governance standards, we remain committed to the due process of the law, and we wish to assure all our customers of our unwavering commitment to upholding the highest level of ethical standards in all our dealings with customer data.”
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