Fidelity Bank Reacts to N555.8m Data Violation Fine by NDPC

Fidelity Bank Plc, has denied any wrong doing following the N555,800,000 (Five Hundred and Fifty-Five-Million-Eight Hundred-Thousand naira) fine slammed on the bank by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Data Protection Commission (NDPC).

The fine represents 0.1% of the Bank’s annual gross revenue in 2023.

NDPC had alleged that Fidelity Bank was found wanting following investigations into [alleged] violations of Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation, 2019.

However, a statement by Meksley Nwagboh, the divisional Head, Brand & Communications, he said while the matter is a subject of an ongoing engagement with the regulator, the bank have conducted itself to the highest ethical standards by ensuring full compliance with extant laws on data protection.

Nwagboh gave a breakdown of Fidelity Bank’s dealings with the NDPC since they (the Bank) received NDPC’s letter over the alleged data breach:

“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.

He said that based on the notice, they conducted an internal investigation into the circumstances around the claim and discovered as follows:

“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.

“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.

“In compliance with our data protection laws, the account was not allowed to be operational as the passport photograph and BVN were not provided.

“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 2^nd 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 7^th, 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 2^nd.

“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 5^th December of 2023, we got a letter from NDPC demanding we pay a ‘remedial fee’ of N250 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 20^th of August demanding that we now pay N555.8m naira.

“As a responsible financial organization 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”.

Nwagboh reiterated that Fidelity Bank has strong corporate governance which has earned them local and international recognition, including the prestigious CG+ award.

“This is the highest rank under the Corporate Governance Rating System (CGRS) of the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX), which evaluates listed companies against established best practices and standards.

“As a Bank, we remain in discussions with the NDPC over an amicable resolution to this matter”, the statement reads.