Fidelity Bank has denied allegations of data breach and disputed the fine imposed by the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC).<\/p>\n
Meksley Nwagboh, divisional head of brand and communications, Fidelity Bank, in a statement, said the bank \u201cconducted itself to the highest ethical standards by ensuring full compliance with extant laws on data protection\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, NDPC said it imposed N555.8 million fine on Fidelity Bank for allegedly violating data privacy laws.<\/p>\n
According to Dr. Vincent Olatunji, the national commissioner of NDPC, the bank\u2019s \u201carrogance ultimately led us to impose the full penalty\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the fine, the bank said the alleged data breach was investigated, and it was discovered that \u201can account opening request was received online, but the account was not operational due to incomplete documentation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The bank added that it \u201ccarried out due diligence by immediately blocking the account and subsequently closing it when outstanding documents were not provided\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn April 30th, 2023, we received a notice of investigation from the Nigerian Data Protection Agency (NDPA), now the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC),\u201d the bank said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018ACCOUNT IMMEDIATELY PUT ON POST NO DEBIT\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Fidelity Bank said that based on the notice received, it conducted an internal investigation into the circumstances around the claim.<\/p>\n The bank said it discovered that \u201can 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,\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 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,\u201d the bank added.<\/p>\n \u201cIn compliance with our data protection laws, the account was not allowed to be operational as the passport photograph and BVN were not provided.<\/p>\n \u201cThe account was immediately placed on \u2018Post No Debit\u2019 status as the applicant was expected to complete the account opening process by providing the outstanding documents for verification within 30 days.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was not done, and the account was eventually closed.<\/p>\n \u201cOn 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.<\/p>\n \u201cOn 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.<\/p>\n \u201cAt no point in the process was the account ever operational.<\/p>\n \u201cOn 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.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, despite our explanation and evidence provided to support our claim, the agency informed us that they had concluded to impose a penalty on the bank.<\/p>\n \u201cOn 5th December of 2023, we got a letter from NDPC demanding we pay a \u2018remedial fee\u2019 of N250 million within 21 days.<\/p>\n \u201cWe immediately commenced another round of engagements with the Commission as we were convinced we had not breached any extant law or regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n Fidelity Bank, however, said while they were still engaging with the NDPC, the bank received another letter on August 20, demanding that we now pay N555.8 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fidelity Bank has denied allegations of data breach and disputed the fine imposed by the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC). Meksley Nwagboh, divisional head of brand and communications, Fidelity Bank, in a statement, said the bank \u201cconducted itself to the highest ethical standards by ensuring full compliance with extant laws on data protection\u201d. On Wednesday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":86192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-techlaw-digest"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t