The banks in Nigeria have faced problems due to damage to undersea cables, resulting in internet outages across parts of Africa. This issue occurred on Thursday and affected various providers of submarine cables, causing disruptions in internet traffic in many parts of the continent.
Reports indicate that the damage primarily affected major undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. This damage impacted several submarine communications cables, including the West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3. Consequently, countries in West and South Africa experienced downtime in their telecommunications networks, affecting services such as banking transactions in Nigeria.
In a notice to its customers, Sterling Bank apologized for the inconvenience caused by the network disruption and acknowledged the difficulties customers may face in transferring funds, reaching customer care, or conducting transactions via USSD. The bank assured its customers of its commitment to providing the best service and pledged to inform them when the issue was resolved.
Rasheed Bolarinwa, the President of the Association of Corporate Affairs Managers of Banks (ACAMB), confirmed that the connectivity issues affected many banks. He stated that the glitch significantly impacted daily banking operations, affecting almost all Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria. However, Bolarinwa noted that substantial progress is being made in gradually resolving the problem.
