Court Orders 71 Banks to Freeze Accounts Linked to N1.3bn Access Bank Fraud

The Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered 71 banks and financial institutions to impose debit restrictions on accounts allegedly linked to the fraudulent transfer of N1.34 billion from customers’ accounts with Access Bank.

Justice Akintayo Aluko issued the order following an ex parte application filed by Access Bank on August 13, 2026.

According to court documents, Access Bank detected the fraud on August 12 and said the money was transferred without customers’ authorisation through its Access SME App.

The bank told the court that its internal investigation showed that N1,340,425,393 had been moved from customers’ accounts into accounts held with Access Bank and 71 other financial institutions.

The court granted Access Bank’s requests to place post-no-debit restrictions on the affected accounts and BVNs, require the financial institutions to disclose the amounts recovered, and place the relevant BVNs on a watchlist pending the recovery process.

However, the court rejected Access Bank’s request for an immediate reversal of recovered funds, ruling that such an order would amount to a final judgment at this stage.

The financial institutions affected include major banks, microfinance banks and fintech companies such as First Bank, GTBank, Fidelity Bank, Zenith Bank, UBA, Ecobank, Stanbic IBTC, Opay, PalmPay, Kuda and others.

The case has been adjourned until August 31, 2026, for further proceedings.

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