The long awaited solutions to charge-back in Nigerian agency banking sector has now be resolve by first bank Nigeria.

This was contained in a massage maid available to Daily Episode as seen by AIACCESS CONTARACTORS.

Dear Team,

I trust that meets you well.

Background

Given the stipulated guideline of dispute management which requires the acquiring bank to engage Agents in our own case, Agents are not only notified but also engaged on chargeback related enquiries to forestall crystallization of dispute because Agent failed to provide appropriate response within the defined TAT . There had been cases of undue debit to Agent account for some successful or pending (code 09) transactions because of delayed response or no response at all to chargeback enquiry therefore resulting in Agent dissatisfaction, loss of funds and apathy for the Firstmonie brand in few extreme situations.

In a bid to resolve the earlier mentioned concerns, we have engaged IT to explore the option of generating electronic receipts on behalf of Agents so that chargeback enquiry on outright successful transaction will no longer be sent to the Agents. Such electronic receipts generated on behalf of Agents remains a valid proof to decline successful claims logged against affected Agents.

Prior to the scrapping of 09 error codes, Agents were advised to pay for any code 09 transaction while settlement comes at T+1. While some Agents adhered to this many others did not comply leading to undue reputational exposures. The E-receipt was primarily designed to protect Agents’ funds in cases where successful transactions are later presented for chargeback. Consequent upon the above mentioned, engagements with the Agents are now only on FAILED TRANSACTIONS.

Revalidation Mails

It has become imperative that branches understand the concept of revalidation mails necessary to protect Agents’ interest that are genuine and safeguard their operating funds.

The banks dispute resolution team(EPO) uses the E-receipts to decline every transaction that showed successful on it. However, arbitrating banks sometimes push back on some to say their customer insists that value was not given for the transaction. This therefore leads to revalidation mails by EPO sent to various branches confirm from their respective Agents to validate if value was given or not.

Expectations

Following the stated importance of revalidation mails, branches are expected to treat all revalidation mails as high priority.

The implication of not providing the required response within the defined time frame is that the Bank will be debited for the claim being disputed with an additional N5000 arbitration fee by the switch.

Request

Given the importance of this exercise and the attendant reputational damage the non-responsiveness of branches may cause, we solicit your kind support by engaging the bank branches under your management on the need to adhere to this guideline of providing quick response to revalidation mails on behalf of their Agents.

Thank you

AIACCESS CONTRACTORS