GT Bank Customers Grumble About Arbitrary Charges, Rowdy Banking Hall

Odunayo Akinremi

Some customers of GT Bank in the Sango-Otta area of Ogun state are grumbling about the rowdy setting of the banking hall and the rampant charges on their accounts.

They made their complaints in the course of an interactive session with our reporter, who also was a witness the situation.

Mr Oluwaseun Tijani, electronics products’ dealer who owns an account at the branch said that two days ago the bank charged him N385 for sms charges for the month of October.

According to him, the amount is high and contrary to his expectation, since there isn’t much sms transaction between him and the bank.

He therefore appealed to the bank’s management to do something about it.

Mr Olorunfemi Sehindemi, civil servant also complained about the sms charges of the bank.

According to him, the N65 ATM charge per transaction according to him it was just too high and should be reduced.

Besides, this, Sehindemi complained about the atmosphere in the banking hall, saying it was usually roudy.

For him ,it is a clear indication that the bank needed more staffers to handle the traffic of customers.

Another bitter customer of the bank, Mrs Kolade Oluwatoyin said her own observation centred on the situation at the bank’s Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) terminals.

She said the dispensing points are usually rowdy, thus creating an atmosphere of both insecurity and poor organisation.

She also appealed to the bank’s management to find a solution to the observations.

For Mrs Kehinde Aderonmu, who spoke to our reporter outside the premises of the bank, there is no doubt that the bank could do with more customers; or in the alternative, build another branch in Ota.

She argued that the building of another branch of the bank, would decongest the existing one and lead to improved service to the customers.

Efforts to speak with an official of the bank however did not yield positive results but GTB ‘s recently released audited financial results for the period ended September 2018, showed positive performance across all financial indices with the bank’s management  saying that this had reaffirmed GTB’s position as one of the most profitable and well managed financial institutions in Nigeria.

Gross Gross earnings for the period grew by 8.8% to ₦337.3billion from ₦309.9billion reported in September 2017. Profit before tax stood at ₦164.2billion, representing a growth of 9.5% over ₦150.0billion recorded in the corresponding period of September 2017.

While this is commendable, it is however expected that the bank responds to observations of customers relating to its Santo-Otta branch.