National Bank reassures customers after Sh29m fraud

National Bank of Kenya (NBK) has lost Sh29 million to fraud, becoming the latest lender to bleed money in less than two months.

In a statement that did not go down well with customers on social media, NBK said there was “an attempted fraud in the course of the business” which was stopped by the bank’s monitoring and security team.

“The amount of attempted fraud is about Sh29 million and we are confident we will recover most of that money,” said the bank in a statement.

The bank added that its security team was in pursuit of the fraudsters as investigations continue.

This was even as social media made it a trending topic under #NBKHacked with some claims that the amount lost was in the region of Sh340 million. However, NBK denied the claims.

“Customer accounts have not been affected and the latest social media speculation on the potential loss is incorrect,” said the bank.

Sources within NBK told The Saturday Standard that unknown people had gained access to several accounts and siphoned out money before the bank detected the incident and froze the accounts.

The NBK loss comes barely two months after Kenya Commercial Bank lost Sh50 billion when burglars dug a tunnel into its Thika branch and accessed the vault.

NBK was also in June last year forced to summarily dismiss the head of medium business Dennis Oduor, who was arrested over the loss of Sh2.3 billion.

Banks have been keen to change their communication strategies, often resorting to breaking the news on sensitive matters such as theft.