Flutterwave Hacked: Providus, Kuda Customers Complain of Frozen Accounts

There is growing concern that reports about Flutterwave’s financial scandals will have a negative impact on its growth prospects. Reports emerged early this week that Africa’s largest fintech lost almost N3 billion in customers’ funds, alleged to have been stolen by hackers.

This quagmire amidst the economic crises faced has left many Nigerians frustrated. A few Nigerians have spoken out on Twitter, calling out banks like Providus and Kuda for blocking their accounts in the wake of the Flutterwave hack, which occurred in February but was reported in March. 

This is not the first time the fintech company has been enmeshed with such scandalous reports. Last year, TechEconomy reported how a Kenyan court also indicted Flutterwave in a fraud and money laundering investigation conducted by Kenya’s Asset Recovery Agency.

Accounts Frozen

Samuel O. Akinola, an entrepreneur, tweeted that his account was blocked by Kuda even after submitting all documents to ascertain the legality of his transaction.

According to him, Kuda locked my account, claiming Flutterwave said its system was hacked even after it denied it! “Who is the liar exactly? Who is the thief.”

Another Kuda customer identified as Dickson Solomon let out on Twitter that his account was placed on a lien.

“If Flutterwave account has not been hacked, then why report my bank account to @kudabank to place a lien on my bank account? I don’t have any biz with Flutterwave. Why report my bank account?” he tweeted.

Nnajiofor Ikechukwu also complained that Providus Bank froze his account in relation to the hack. He wrote “please help victims like us resolve this matter, Flutterwave was hacked and sent an order to freeze my Providus bank account and they are here denying it.

A Twitter user said in an effort to recover her funds, it all resulted in a back and fourth message with Kuda

“After a back and forth emails with Kuda from one of the people I paid they revealed to me that Flutterwave disputed the funds that someone hacked into their system and distributed the funds to me which I later did to the person I paid.”

Flutterwave Denies Being Hacked

An official statement by Flutterwave denies the hack saying, “we identified an unusual trend of transactions on some users’ profiles. 

Our team immediately launched a review (in line with our standard operating procedure), which revealed that some users who had not activated some of our recommended security settings might have been susceptible.”

The statement adds that Flutterwave was able to address the issue before any harm was done to its users.

“We want to confirm that no user lost any funds, and we take pride in the fact that our security measures were able to address the issue before any harm could be done to our users.

Our commitment to keeping our users’ financial information safe and secure is why we invest heavily in security initiatives such as periodic audits, certifications, and licenses such as the PCI-DSS & ISO 27001. 

These are in line with global best practices in information security management.”