The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) says a systems upgrade was behind yesterday's outage at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE).
In a statement, the NBE revealed the disruption impacting all CBE branches occurred as part of routine maintenance and technology improvements.
As the nation's largest financial institution with over 30 million customers, the outage raised questions about what happened.
There were claims of unauthorized transactions such as withdrawals and transfers being conducted before the shutdown. This fueled speculation about a potential cyberattack targeting the nation's biggest bank. However, initial checks by the NBE found no security breaches or financial losses from the incident.
University students have been identified as some who misused the system flaws to move funds over their account limits, according to reports. In response, universities warned students involved to return the money or face police action.
While investigations will continue, the NBE stated initial checks found no security breaches or financial damage from the incident. Customer deposits and data remained secure throughout, according to the NBE.
Customers of CBE can be confident their personal information and money are safe, NBE said, despite facing disruptions from the necessary technology works.