Flutterwave has debunked the news reported by various media outlets that its accounts had been hacked and the sum of ₦2.9 billion belonging to its customers stolen.
According to Techpoint Africa, the aforementioned sum was illegally transferred from the accounts of the fintech company.
Responding to the allegations, Olugbenga Agboola, Flutterwave’s co-founder and CEO, stated that “Flutterwave has not been hacked”.
“This is a typical user profile compromise by a user who did not activate the relevant security on their profile. Our transaction monitoring system detected it as it should and notified the user”, he said.
This means that the merchant account was hacked and not accounts belonging to the company.
Although Techpoint Africa had reported a lawsuit between Flutterwave and twenty-seven financial institutions including Kuda, Access Bank, Keystone Bank, and Zenith Bank amongst others; the company in a responsive statement said, “During a routine check of our transaction monitoring system, 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”.
“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 was 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”.
Recall that in July 2022, Flutterwave denied the allegations by 86FB/86z – an online gambling platform, which stated that the company had frozen their accounts [maliciously] to keep the funds and involve the local police. The company said that the merchants were suspended from using its platform because transactions were done without approval or authorisation, but all funds have been settled.
Also, in the same month, Flutterwave had its license relieved by the Central Bank of Kenya on grounds of not being a licensed financial provider which halted all transactional acts by the company. The long court case ended in February 2023 and they are back in full operation.
