The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has published the name and account information of 567 individuals who have yet to return money misappropriated during a March system glitch.
On March 16th, a 12-hour technical issue impacted CBE's core banking platform. An investigation found that 25,761 accounts were involved in unauthorized transfers totaling 801.4 million birr. Â
Since then, CBE has recovered 78 percent of lost funds, around 622.9 million birr, through voluntary repayments. Another 168.6 million birr has been pledged for return by individuals who improperly transferred money during the outage.
However, 567 people still owe a combined total of 9.8 million birr.
After those individuals missed last Saturday's deadline to return the misused monies, CBE went public with their names on the bank's official website today. Â
The identities of those who missed the deadline were published today due to non-compliance with previous warnings. They face potential legal penalties if full repayment is not made within the next four days.
Today, CBE President Abe Sano issued a stern warning that legal action will commence within four days if the amounts are not restored. "We will not hesitate to pursue this through the courts," he affirmed.