by Ronald Toito’ona
Bank South Pacific (BSP) Solomon Islands has failed to respond to questions regarding multiple reports of unexplained deductions from customer accounts, some involving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Craig Day, a prominent business owner, sounded the alarm after his company, Solomon Motors Ltd, experienced a massive and erroneous deduction.
“Our Solomon Motors Ltd account had over $170,000 taken out in error and we had to request it be reviewed and reversed,” he wrote.
He further revealed that his partner also fell victim to the issue.
“My partner also had $25,000 taken from her account and we had to follow up and request a review and reversal.”
Adding to the controversy, another customer and former Member of Parliament (MP) for Savo-Russells, Dickson Mua, also shared a disturbing experience of unauthorized withdrawals linked to a bank employee.
“That’s true. We had a similar deduction but with withdrawals we don’t know. Upon our request to seek legal advice, they told us it was done by one bank officer,” he revealed.
Several affected individuals have taken to social media to warn others and demand accountability from the bank.
A senior BSP bank officer In-depth Solomons spoke to said the issue with Solomon Motors Ltd is caused by an error. While he confirmed there was a technical error, he did not elaborate on what was really the cause.
The BSP management in Honiara have failed to reply to questions sent to them by In-depth Solomons, Wednesday this week.
This is not the first time BSP has faced allegations of financial irregularities in the Pacific region.
In its founding country of Papua New Guinea (PNG), past incidents have seen customers withdrawing unusually large sums of money from ATMs due to suspected bank system glitches.
During the Easter weekend of 2023, a “technical issue” during a system upgrade allowed some customers to overdraw their accounts, while others observed unexpected deductions. The bank however, acknowledged the problem and advised that customers who had overdrawn their accounts would need to repay the bank.
In July 2021, BSP faced allegations of non-compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations.
The Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit (FASU) of the Bank of Papua New Guinea took regulatory action against BSP, citing concerns over the bank’s compliance in these areas.
Having heard these incidents, BSP customers in Solomon Islands have raised concerns about the security of customer funds and the effectiveness of the bank’s internal controls.
Berry Billy, a BSP customer in Auki, Malaita Province, told In-depth Solomons that the Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) should step in to make sure BSP fixes these banking issues.
“This kind of experience makes us doubt BSP’s banking system. We want clearer information, better security, and faster solutions when these problems happen,” said Billy, who is a school teacher by profession.