In response to the National Data Protection Commission’s (NDPC) imposition of an N555.8 million fine, Fidelity Bank has issued a statement firmly denying any data protection violations.
The NDPC had alleged that the bank breached customer data privacy and imposed the substantial fine, citing violations of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) of 2019 and the Nigeria Data Protection (NDP) Act of 2023.
The commission also criticized the bank’s lack of cooperation during the investigation, which influenced the severity of the penalty.
However, Fidelity Bank maintains that it has adhered to the highest ethical standards and complied fully with data protection laws. “As a Bank, we remain in discussions with the NDPC over an amicable resolution to this matter,” said Meksley Nwagboh, a spokesman for the bank.
Fidelity Bank provided a detailed account of its interactions with the NDPC regarding the issue. “On April 30th, 2023, we received a notice of investigation from the Nigerian Data Protection Agency (NDPA), now the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC).
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The investigation was in respect of a complaint from [name has been withheld to protect the identity of the complainant] who claimed that [name withheld] details were used to open an account in the bank without [name withheld] consent.”
The bank’s statement continued, “On May 2nd, 2023, we responded to the NDPC that the bank did not violate any law because there was no data breach and that the account opening process was not completed.
On our part, we carried out due diligence by immediately blocking the account and subsequently closing the account when we did not receive the outstanding documents. At no point in the process was the account ever operational.”
Fidelity Bank also detailed its engagement with the NDPC, noting, “On July 7th, 2023, we were invited for a Pre-Action meeting with NDPC. During the meeting, we restated our position as earlier communicated to them in our letter dated May 2nd. However, despite our explanation and evidence provided to support our claim, the agency informed us that they had reached a conclusion to impose a penalty on the bank.”
“On December 5th, 2023, we got a letter from NDPC demanding we pay a ‘remedial fee’ of N250 million within 21 days. We immediately commenced another round of engagements with the Commission as we were convinced we had not breached any extant law or regulation.
While discussions were still ongoing with the NDPC, we received another letter on August 20th demanding that we now pay N555.8 million naira.”
The bank’s response underscores its commitment to resolving the matter and challenges the NDPC’s findings and penalty.
