Access Bank has offered to reverse the stamp duty charges for February to April debited from its customers’ accounts which prompted the customers to mount a social media campaign against the bank.

The bank had earlier informed customers in an email that it failed to implement a mandated stamp duty charge on applicable transactions between February 1, and April 30, 2020 and that it would do so as accumulated to each account.

This led to deductions some totalling several hundreds of naira far above the N50 prescribed by the 2019 Finance Act which provides that bank customers pay a N50 stamp duty charge on every N10,000 deposit.

In a statement on Sunday, the bank said it recognized that it is a tough period for customers.

“We have considered your feedback and have decided to pay the stamp duty on our customers’ behalf for the affected period only,” the bank said in a statement.

“This means that individuals and SMEs who were debited for the accumulated stamp duty charge for February to April 2020 will be refunded.

“While we still have to remit these funds via the CBN to the federal government, we realise that we got it wrong by debiting our customers late, and we are refunding the affected stamp duty charge today to all affected customers.

“We hope this gesture goes some way to make this better.”