Stark realities have indicated that Nigerian banks reap an average of N16.5 billion from Commission on Turnover (COT) annually through hidden charges which most of their customers are unaware of, The Tide source disclosed.

Further findings indicate that there is hardly any transaction that customers undertake without the banks making some profit, a situation which is heightened by the fact that over 60 per cent of the banking public do not request for a statement of their account.

For instance, one of the old generation banks which scaled the CBN audit exercise disclosed in its annual report for 2009 that income from commission and charges amounted to N28.13 billion, while gross earnings stood at nearly N190 billion. This means that income from commissions and charges accounted for over 15 per cent of its income for that year.

Similarly, another new generation bank which also passed the apex bank’s audit raked in a total of N4.81 billion as income from commission and charges, while a total of N104.5 billion was gross revenue in the 2009 financial year. The average earnings from COT for banks in Nigeria, based on the income from small banks and big banks is thus in the neighbourhood of N16.5 billion.

But what is even more alarming about the COT issue is that most banks hardly bother to include that part in their annual report, but simply refer to such incomes as ‘other incomes’.

Meanwhile, The Tide  investigations also revealed that the situation is steadily getting worse this year, as more and more banks are beginning to add further charges to their transactions with customers. The trend, however, is not tied to those banks under the CBN-appointed management alone, but also includes almost every other bank looking for extra means of raising income.

A particular bank, rated among the top five in the country, in the midst of all this, has come up with charges which were not demanded last year. Okoli Dan, a customer, for instance, withdrew N20,000 from his account, but was surprised to receive an e-mail alert indicating he had been charged N147 as withholding tax.

It was a similar experience for Umukoro Blessing, another customer, who was equally dismayed after withdrawing same amount from the bank, and received two text messages from the bank’s alert services instead of one. According to him, the first one read: “Transaction notification: N20,000 debit, cash on self withdrawal,” while the second stated thus: “Transaction withdrawal notification: N100 debit as cash withdrawal commission.”

Their complaint was that the banks should have had the courtesy of apprising them of any impending charges, instead of simply going ahead to impose these charges arbitrarily.

In the estimation of Sonnie Okoro, yet another customer, the banks, particularly those that scaled the CBN audit exercise, may have become arrogant, feeling that there are little or no options for customers with eight of the hammered.