Regulator to question Opay over alleged unauthorised accounts
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, says it will question OPay over unauthorised account allegations by Nigerians.
The Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of FCCPC, Babatunde Irukera, stated this while responding to allegations by Nigerians on Twitter that OPay was opening unauthorised accounts for them.
Responding to these concerns, Irukera, tweeted, “OPAY is inbound to @fccpcnigeria to address and explain this and other anomalies consumers have identified in the last few days. An update will be forthcoming.”
Earlier, while responding to another tweet, the FCCPC CEO said, “OPay has been asked to come in and explain what has been a few days of anomalies.”
OPay is a licensed mobile money operator that uses customers’ mobile numbers as their account numbers. The fintech recently gained ground during Nigeria’s cash crunch period because of the reliability of its services when traditional banks were failing.
Efforts to reach Irukera to confirm if OPay had responded to the commission’s summon proved abortive.
Reacting to these allegations in confirmed reports, OPay’s company’s Head of Marketing, Kunle Adeyemi, highlighted that some of the affected individuals might have interacted with OPay in the past.
He said, “We saw these tweets yesterday and internally we are currently reviewing what transpired as we ensure that all wallet holders are adequately registered. Some people might have had interactions with the platform at one point or the other, it’s important that I get feedback internally based on our investigation before we respond.”
A tweet by @hackSultan read, “I just checked now and somehow, I have an OPay account, same with every member of my family. None of us has ever opened an OPay account. How’s this even legal.” A lot of other netizens also corroborated this with many tweeting about how they have OPay accounts despite never opening one.
Many netizens have now raised the alarm over this, claiming to have never used the services of the fintech.
@Cohannnnn tweeted, “This is ridiculous. Everyone has an OPay account opened for them.”
@Busayo Otebata, said, “I don’t have an account with OPay and I’ve never opened it created anything that has to do with Opay and I can see my name on their banking app.”
Credit: Punch
