The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday advised the Nigerian public to be wary of SWIFT MT103, SWIFT and Ack copy, etc, requests in form of messages believed to have originated from foreign bodies to beneficiaries in Nigeria through their Nigerian banks. The CBN described such messages as fake.
CBN said in recent time it has been inundated with claims by private entities,
individuals, law firms and government agencies that foreign currency funds allegedly transferred
to them by foreign entities have yet to be credited to their accounts with Nigerian banks.
In a statement by the bank’s Ag director of corporate communications, Mrs Hakama Side-Ali, the apaex bank cautioned the SWIFT messages are both suspect and deceitful.
The CBN noted in the statement that, “In some instances, the claimants alleged that the funds were withheld by either the beneficiary bank in Nigeria or the CBN and requested the assistance of the Bank towards releasing the funds to them.
“The requests are usually supported with fake documents such as SWIFT MT103, SWIFT
Ack copy, etc.
“It has become imperative to state that the SWIFT ack copy and SWIFT MT103 that these
claimants usually attach as evidence of remittance to beneficiary banks in Nigeria are not reliable.
“The SWIFT messages are always not traceable on the SWIFT platform, and the funds have not
been received to enable their application to the beneficiary’s account.
“In a situation where a fund transfer beneficiary’s receiving bank claims non-receipt of funds
remitted by the foreign entity (sending customer), instead of escalating such issue to CBN or Law
Enforcement Agencies, the standard practice is for the sending customer to contact the sending
bank to send a tracer to trace where the fund is hanging and recall it.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state emphatically that the CBN neither provides
correspondent banking services for Nigerian banks in foreign payments nor maintains accounts
for private business entities.
“Consequently, petitioners’ claim that the alleged expected inflows
for onward credit into the accounts of private business entities are trapped in the CBN is not only
spurious but deceitful.
“The general public is therefore advised to be careful with such unauthentic SWIFT messages
and documents containing spurious claims of non-application of substantial foreign currency
funds allegedly transferred into the beneficiary’s account.
“The CBN will not hesitate to report any bank customer making unsubstantiated and illegitimate claims to law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution.
“Please be guided accordingly”.
