Oluwanifemi Ojo
Customers of top Nigerian financial institution, Guaranty Trust Bank, have been left fuming on social media after a downtime experienced in its mobile app.
AMBusiness reports that many of the bank’s customers vented their frustration by flooding Twitter with many complaints tagged to to the official Twitter page of GTB.
This publication recalls that the Central Bank of Nigeria on Sunday extended the deadline for phasing out the old naira note from January 31 to February 10.
As this deadline draws near, there have been hitches in the supply of the new naira note to the public, leading to scarcity of both old and new naira notes with long queues spotted at banks, ATMs.
Despite the extension, the frustration has not eased as only a few commercial banks are dispensing cash.
The development has also led to an increase in the transaction rate by Point of Sale operators who manage to have cash to give out to customers.
Popular gospel musician Nathaniel Bassey was part of those who experienced the GTB app downtime.
In a post on his verified Twitter handle, he said, “Anyone having issue with GTBank App?”
This spurred reactions from customers experiencing similar difficulties with the bank’s app services during this period.
Replying to this tweet, @olumide_jabobs said, “Could this be related to the cash scarcity and May be an increase in the volume of online transactions.”
According to @bolajidamilola, “The currency crisis in Nigeria has reached its ZENITH this week. Many Nigerians have no ACCESS to the new currency. Business owners and service providers have no GUARANTY TRUST on the” old bank notes.”
@mittinjoshua1 said “It’s universal, I think. It’s been a mess for the past 2 days.”
@aijusgottable replied “Since last week. App loads slowly and transactions aren’t working.
It says I cannot process the request at this time and then becomes a duplicate transaction. I have bills to pay!”
@gtbank, responding to one of the customers @thomaskenneth02, says “Hello, thank you for contacting us. We apologize for any inconvenience experienced. Please be informed that all downtime issues are being worked on. Please bear with us.”
As of the time of filing this report, the bank is yet to confirm or respond to the complaints of its customers on the downtime experienced on its mobile app.
