On Tuesday morning, during the 2022 annual general meeting (AGM), Standard bank told shareholders that it was giving the issue of ghost accounts the seriousness it deserves.
Standard Bank has reported all cases involved in dormant accounts that its employees activated with their own funds to the authorities.
“All facts have been reported to the relevant authorities, The allegations are currently undergoing investigations”, said Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala.
However, Tshabalala said it was still too early to say definitively how this will affect the customer numbers for its SA operations or what the financial impact is going to be. The bank breached the 10 million customer mark in its SA operations last December.
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However, when it emerged that some of its staff members had been activating accounts to create an illusion that they were active when some of them were not, the bank said this affected a very small portion of My Mo accounts.
Tshabalala also told shareholders at the AGM that the numbers are very small.
“That at the moment is still de minimis [too minor]. But I think one instance of misspelling is inappropriate, and we’re investigating that. So, the substance is that yes, we reported appropriately, but the numbers at the moment appear de minimis, but the ethical problem is large, and we are investigating,” said Tshabalala.
Thulani Gcabashe Outgoing Standard Bank chairperson also said that the board and senior management do not condone such actions.
“We take it in very poor light. And we also think it’s not in keeping with the culture of the way we do business at the bank,” he said.
Meanwhile, the sacked employees who say that managers pressured them to activate accounts, sometimes using the bank’s own kitty box – are still fighting their dismissals. They have delivered a memorandum to Standard Bank’s Somerset West offices demanding to be reinstated.
They deem the dismissals “unfair” since they maintain that had it not been for pressure coming from the top, they would not have activated those dormant accounts. They say that activating accounts was not part of their targets, and they never earned any commission from it. Instead, the pressure was on their managers.
“We have been put on a REDS list, The REDS listing has resulted in us not being able to work in any financial institution”, They said. The red is part of their memorandum and refers to the Register of Employees Dishonesty System (REDS).