Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) will need to speedily ratify its reoccurring network challenges which worsened in the past three days and affected its customers at the big bank’s well publicised Food and Drink Festival.
Several GTCO customers could not make payment on the bank’s payment channels during the three-day event that held in Lagos. Other mobile money payment platforms like Opay were used by GTCO customers to pay for items bought at the event.
Jude Dike, founder of Lagos-based start-up, Getequity, complained of how the network affected payments across GTB cards, POS and online transfers.
“GT’s card was not working on a GT POS and the GT app was also not loading to transfer to a GT account number at a GT SME event,” Dike said.
Other people at the event however said they were able to make transactions using their GTCO app. “I did not experience glitches using my GTCO app. It was how I paid for everything I bought” Maria Udo, who was also at the event, said.
The GTCO Food and Drink Festival which started on April 29 ended on May 1, 2023.
Anthony Dibie, another customer of GTCO, complained on his Twitter account saying “The other day, all other bank cards were working on GTBank ATM except for GTBank cards.”
Charles Eremi, the bank’s head of corporate communications, did not immediately respond to phone calls or a text message seeking comment.
Nigerian banks have struggled to keep pace with the surge in online transfers since a cash crunch occasioned by the CBN’s botched naira redesign, causing customers to migrate to fintech platforms.
A wave of Nigerians relocating out of the country has also exposed the IT departments of key banks, which is partly to blame for rising cases of technological glitches.
GTCO Food & Drink Festival is an annual food exhibition and sales event that projects the diverse angles of the food industry by connecting various businesses involved in the production and sale of food-related items to a cosmopolitan audience of food enthusiasts.
Another GTCO customer Yewande Abimbola told BusinessDay that during the food and drink festival she was only able to pay with fintech apps.
“I was only able to pay with my online platforms for the food and drink I bought at the event.”
A lot of other customers complained of network failure away from the food festival.
Also, a Twitter user with user name @JonBamcomplained about poor network around Ikeja on Friday.
“No network in the whole of Ikeja for Gtbank. No network at Gtb ATM, other bank ATM and even POS. This is affecting gtb ATM card users in the while of ikeja and its environment,” he said.
Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO) published its first quarter report for the period ended 31 March 2023, showing year on year growth in the company’s top line and bottom-line figures.
The bank recorded a 32.19 percent jump in gross earnings to N158.093 billion in Q1 from N119.593 billion the previous year.
Profit after tax grew year on year by 34.62% to N58.167 billion from N43.208 reported in Q1 2022.
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