A fresh scandal involving humongous sums of money is brewing at Diamond Trust Bank Uganda Limited (DTBUL) – commonly known as Diamond Trust Bank or DTB – after information emerged that the financial institution fraudulently debited Shs100bn from an account of an anonymous customer.
Sources close to the matter indicate that the bank and the customer are headed to a fierce legal battle should the bank fail to yield and return the customer’s account.
The customer apparently is pondering involving Bank of Uganda, the regulator of financial institutions, in an effort to have the money back and put an end to what the customer called ‘fraudulent action by Diamond Trust Bank.’
“This was sheer disrespect of Bank of Uganda’s Financial Consumer Protection Guidelines (FCPGs). Diamond Trust Bank is supposed to protect the money from depositors but not to steal it. Shs100bn is a lot of money to just disappear from the account mysteriously,” a source told Xpress Times.
“Diamond Trust Bank has got away with a number of frauds but not this time around,” the source added explaining that a court process has been arranged and that customer is going to go hard at the bank and expose their fraudulent deals that has put depositors’ money at risk.
Diamond Trust Bank has in the past swept the carpet a number of fraud activities many orchestrated from insiders in the bank – some have gone public and were widely published in the news. Unlike the past scandals this is huge when you consider the sums involved.
In November 2016, DTB confirmed that a branch manager in Malaba stole from the bank Shs345m while in July 2017 a family was embroiled in a court battle with DTB over a Shs10bn loan.
In another insider fraud two security personnel stole over Shs1.4bn while transporting it from DTB Kikubo branch to the Main Branch on Kampala Road before they were arrested.
Diamond Trust Bank commenced its operations in 1945 as the Diamond Jubilee Investment Trust (DJIT) in Tanzania before it spread its footprint in Kenya and later in Uganda. In Uganda, it has 33 branches across the country.
Reports indicate that the bank’s total assets were valued at about UGX:1.606 trillion as of December 2018. It is listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange under the Diamond Trust Bank Group, a large financial services provider with operations in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.
However, with the increasing reports of fraud cases hitting the bank, customers are worried and many are pondering quitting the bank and move their money to other bearable commercial banks.
“If a bank that has existed for over 74years with estimated assets worth over 1.6 Trillion can illegally perform such fraud, acting against the banking code, without even being regulated by the Bank of Uganda, then where are we heading?” Mark Mulwanyi commented on the matter on a Facebook post
“If Such a big customer can shamelessly be defrauded, then what about us?” Mulwanyi questioned. Another commenter called Dema Millers suggested that DTB should be investigated for the silly charges imposed on clients.
With such developments, Bank of Uganda is left with a huge job to do to clean up the banking sector especially when commercial banks are involved and playing the fraud game.
