ISLAMABAD – Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB) Bank Limited continues to remain in the news due to banking fraud incidents and now the President of Pakistan has directed the commercial bank to investigate corrupt officials involved in scams and to return money to customers.
The bank fraud incident that occurred in Jhang landed in the Presidency, and Dr Arif Alvi ordered Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB) to investigate and start criminal proceedings, including the registration of case, against corrupt officials.
President issued orders while deciding upon a representation filed by Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB) against the decision of the Banking Mohtasib directing the bank to pay the complainant a sum of Rs3.093 million.
During the probe, it came out that bank officials were also involved in the scam.
President thus directed bank to return the above-mentioned amount to the customer who lost his hard-earned money in a fraud orchestrated by a tea boy and bank officials posted at branch.
The complainant Muhammad Munir Ahmed had a joint account at MCB’s Gojra Road Branch, Jhang Saddar.
The customer who was swindled in a proper scam filed a complaint in wake of a massive shortfall in account balance and over 290 deposit slips, that equates to Rs3.09 Million were not credited to the account.
The distressed customer first tried to settle the matter with the bank but MCB rejected their claim, maintaining that the staffer was employed by a third-party organization that had already lodged an FIR against him.
To the customer’s surprise, MCB said it was not responsible for personal dealings of customer with the tea boy.
The customer then moved Banking Mohtasib for the recovery of the amount. Banking Mohtasib accepted the complaint and directed MCB to pay complainant’s account with a sum of Rs3.093 million and report compliance within 40 days.
MCB later filed a representation against Mohtasib’s decision with President, who then conducted a personal hearing of the case at Aiwan-e-Sadr and rejected the Bank’s representation.
President Alvi maintained that MCB violated the procedures by not complying with the own SOPs, introducing on its own a new system of signing deposit slips, affixing the Utility Bills Received stamp without receiving cash as well as collecting cash from customers from their business places.
He blamed the bank’s maladministration, malpractice, system failure and control weaknesses for the incident.
Dr Alvi said MCB was liable for the acts of their employees’ conduct who were in active service of the Bank when the Complainants had become victims of fraud.
