On August 30 2024, Beatrice Nkatha received an SMS notification on her phone that some money had been debited from her bank account. “Sh. 200 was debited from my account. I wondered how that had come about, but forgot to pay much attention as I had done some transactions with that day and assumed the deduction was part of transactional charges,” she says. One month later, on September 30, she received yet another notification. Sh. 200 had been cut from her account. This caught her attention.
“I checked my balance and noticed that over the two months, Sh. 400 had been deducted in what appeared to be a monthly occurrence. I went to my branch and asked about it,” she says. The branch manager informed her that the bank had introduced account maintenance charges of Sh. 200. Incidentally, two months prior, Beatrice had been slapped with an annual fee for her ATM card.
“I was thrown off; how could they just start deducting money without alerting me that charges had been introduced? I felt as if I was being disrespected; I felt as if I had been cheated on since it was not what I had signed for when I opened that account,” she says.
Beatrice, who runs a porridge business in Limuru town, told Bizna Kenya that she was already struggling to save and build capital for her business expansion. “This was an inlet and outlet money pipe and the last thing I want is to have my hard-earned money getting deducted without,” she says.
The 37-year-old mother of three started shopping around for a bank account that could meet her needs and save her from unnecessary monthly charges. “I started asking some of my customers with whom we were well acquainted where they banked and the benefits they got,” she says. “One of them told me that he had been banking with the same bank, but punitive, hidden charges and fees and forced him to switch to the NCBA Bank that had zero monthly charges.”
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Beatrice says that the customer said he could bring over an officer from the bank to her uji shop who could explain the benefits and future growth prospects, as well as open an account for her. “The bank officer came the following day. She was working at the new NCBA Branch which opened in August,” says Beatrice.
“She explained that the zero monthly charges applied to many accounts at the bank including the salary account, Platinum Flexi, Platinum Pay as you go, Gold Pay as you go, Premier – All-in-One, Platinum All-in-One and Gold-All-in-One, Consumer, Commercial and SME banking accounts. It took less than five minutes to have the account opened.”
Since she transferred all her money from her previous account to the new NCBA account, Beatrice says her bank balance has not mysteriously dipped. “I switched in the first week of October and the bank officer has visited me twice to inquire if I am happy with the services I am getting. I never got that level of customer concern at my previous bank,” she says.
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She adds that the bank officer at NCBA has also suggested ways she could build up and accelerate her business. “She loves my uji and has even brought some of her colleagues to promote me,” she says.
