Habeeb Akande, a student of Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), Ekiti State, has accused Kuda, a digital-only Nigerian bank, of denying him access to his account after changing his phone.

Akande told FIJ he tried logging into his Kuda account on April 8 to access the balance he had left in it but he could not.

He claimed he had a balance of N100,000 in the account.

“I wanted to make a transfer from the N100,000 balance I had left in the account, but shockingly, I couldn’t,” Akande said.

“The bank application kept telling me I had used a wrong password. I thought I was dreaming because there was no way I could have forgotten my password. I eventually reached out to the bank via its Twitter handle on the same day and was told to send them an email requesting for a password reset.”

Akande told FIJ that he decided to open the account because of his younger brother.

“I have a younger brother that is not even old enough to own an account. He is the reason I opened the account. My plan was to continue to deposit money into the account to be able to pay for his Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) and Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) when the time comes,” said Akande.

Akande said he reached out to Kuda a second time when he did not receive the new password the bank promised to send.

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“The following day, after letting them know I did not receive the new password they promised to send, they asked me to provide my full name, account number and other details, and I did,” said Akande.

He said he submitted the newly requested details via a video verification link the bank sent to him on the same day.

“After I submitted the video verification, the bank sent me a message that my video verification was unsuccessful. I submitted another one but they came back again saying it still was not successful,” Akande said.

“After a while, the bank sent me a Google meet link. They told me to attend the meeting with a Doris Ubochi, one of their staff, so I could update my request.”

Akande said he attended the meeting as scheduled on April 13, but was surprised to see that Ubochi was not present.

After the agreed meeting failed to hold, the student subsequently reached out to the bank again to complain about the meeting outcome.

“When I told Kuda that none of their staff attended the meeting, I was asked to visit the bank where the money was sent from, to lodge my complaint. I was surprised by the response. I made them understand that there was no way I could recall where the money was sent from because it was not sent once,” Akande explained.

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Akande claimed that since his last interaction with one of its staff, Kuda had stopped responding to his messages. He is also still unable to access the money in the account.

FIJ contacted Kuda via its customer care number, but it did not connect. An email sent to its customer care desk for comments also got no response.