Lotus Bank Limited has filed a lawsuit against 45 banks in Nigeria before the Federal High Court in Lagos, seeking to recover ₦1,133,808,604.31 allegedly lost following a system failure on its E-Bills Pay platform.
According to the bank, the incident occurred on July 20, 2024, after a “rollback fix” on its e-payment system triggered a glitch that allowed 718 customers to make unauthorised withdrawals and transfers from accounts with insufficient balances.
The funds, Lotus Bank said, were moved into accounts across 45 financial institutions, now joined as defendants in the suit.
The listed defendants include;
- PalmPay,
- Moniepoint,
- OPay,
- GTBank,
- Access Bank,
- Zenith Bank,
- Wema Bank,
- UBA,
- Kuda Bank,
- FairMoney,
- Sterling Bank,
- First Bank,
- Stellas Digital Bank,
- Renmoney,
- Unity Bank,
- FCMB,
- Jaiz Bank,
- Polaris Bank,
- Keystone Bank,
- Stanbic IBTC,
- Fidelity Bank,
- Providus Bank,
- TAJ Bank,
- Union Bank,
- Ecobank,
- Sparkle,
- Kredi Money,
- Alternative Bank,
- Paystack, and
- Momo Payment Settlement System.
Lotus Bank’s suit, filed pursuant to Order 3 Rules 1, 6, and 9 of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2019, seeks the court’s interpretation of CBN guidelines and circulars (BPS/FIRGEN/CIR/02/004 – 2015; BPS/FIRGEN/CIR/05/011 – 2018) on whether the defendant banks are obligated to place a lien on accounts that received the disputed funds and refund such monies.
The bank also urged the court to declare that the 45 banks have a statutory duty to protect the financial system from fraud and take swift remedial action when anomalies are detected.
In its application, supported by a 19-paragraph affidavit deposed to by Gbenga Ojerinde, a Fraud Investigation Officer at Lotus Bank, the lender explained that the glitch enabled customers to carry out multiple transfers without debits reflecting in their accounts.
“It is in the interest of justice, equity, and fairness that the reliefs sought by the plaintiff are granted,” Ojerinde stated.
He added that the matter was promptly reported to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) to coordinate interbank resolutions and prevent further loss.
Some of the defendant banks have filed their responses, while Justice Daniel Osiagor adjourned the case to December 2025 for further hearing.
