Moniepoint, a fintech company operating in Nigeria, could not explain why it asked a customer to pay more money into his bank account to lift a restriction placed on said account when FIJ probed.

Aleem Akande (not real name), a university student in Osun State, told FIJ on Thursday that Moniepoint had locked his account for three months.

Moniepoint’s Know Your Customer (KYC) in May did not end well for Akande. A few hours after an agent visited to verify his house, his bank account was frozen. When he reached out to Moniepoint for rectification, the fintech company told him to make more payments into the blocked account.

Akande told FIJ on Thursday that he also contacted the Moniepoint KYC agent moments after the verification process for explanations but the agent directed him to the company’s compliance team.

“When I called the compliance team, I asked why my account was locked indiscriminately without a court order. The person I spoke to then said that I should return a particular N4.9 million that was sent to my account, that it was fraud money. But I don’t do fraud,” Akande told FIJ.

“So, I traced the money back and I found out that the amount was sent to me on April 26.”

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Akande also told FIJ that he once tried to rectify the issue through Moniepoint’s X account. The rectification conditions Moniepoint gave him were what FIJ found confusing.

Akande said that Moniepoint directed him to either contact the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or deposit an amount that would make his balance rise to N4.9 million.

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FIJ contacted Moniepoint on Friday through an email, and the fintech company responded that the case was currently in court as the CBN was already investigating Akande’s account for money laundering.

When FIJ asked further about the rationale behind the additional payment Moniepoint asked Akande to deposit in his account, the Moniepoint respondent said in a cellular call that they were not privy to the message from their X account.

The Moniepoint representative could not explain to FIJ what the message meant.

FIJ also contacted the CBN for comments via email and official social media platforms, but there were no responses at press time.