Court Freezes Keystone Bank Accounts Over Missing ₦5.7 Billion

A Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the freezing of multiple bank accounts after a Keystone Bank system glitch resulted in unauthorized withdrawals amounting to ₦5.7 billion. The glitch, which occurred between February 1 and February 12, 2025, led to inflated balances, allowing some customers to withdraw unearned funds.

According to court documents, a technical issue in Keystone Bank’s system artificially increased account balances. This allowed certain users to withdraw more money than they legitimately had, leading to a financial shortfall of ₦5.7 billion. Investigations revealed that the withdrawn funds were transferred across 21 different accounts before being distributed to other recipients.

Justice D.E. Osiagor issued an order on February 18, 2025, instructing banks to freeze transactions on accounts that received the disputed funds. The affected accounts includes Opay, Providus Bank, Sterling Bank, Access Bank, Zenith Bank, TAJ Bank, GTBank, First Bank, Moniepoint, Fidelity Bank, and UBA.

Authorities are now tracing the movement of these funds and analyzing the role of each financial institution involved. Investigators believe that the money flowed through different levels of beneficiaries, making it more difficult to track.

This isn’t the first time a Nigerian bank has suffered a major system failure. In January 2025, GTBank secured a court order to recover ₦1.9 billion, which was mistakenly credited to customer accounts due to a similar technical issue in October 2024.

These repeated banking errors are raising concerns about Nigeria’s financial infrastructure. While some experts warn that outdated banking systems and weak oversight may be exposing the industry to fraud and system failures, others argue that these incidents remain rare compared to the overall volume of banking transactions.

As of now, Keystone Bank has not issued an official statement regarding the incident. However, financial analysts believe that strict regulatory measures and improved digital banking security are necessary to prevent such glitches in the future.

The case will continue in court as authorities work to recover the lost funds and determine who was responsible for exploiting the system failure.