Yuletide: Anger as customers spend hours in ATM queues

Ifeanyi Onuba, Abuja

Many customers of Deposit Money Banks on Sunday expressed dissatisfaction with the poor quality of service of the various Automated Teller Machines managed by banks in the Federal Capital Territory.

Our correspondent, who visited many of the ATM points, observed long queues and disruption of service by the service providers.

Some of the bank ATMs visited are First City Monument Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, First Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, Unity Bank Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc.

It was observed that while many of the ATM centres within the city centre such as those in Wuse 2, Garki, Central Business District and Maitama had less queues, the same could not be said of the satellite towns such as Lugbe, Kubwa, Dutse, Jikwoyi and Bwari, where the majority of the FCT residents live.

For instance, at the FCMB and First Bank ATMs in Bwari, our correspondent observed long queues, which stretched for almost 500 metres.

It was observed that out of the four payment points at the FCMB ATM in Bwari, only two were dispensing cash as of 3pm when our correspondent visited the bank.

For the First Bank ATM, the situation was worse as only one of the five payment points was dispensing cash.

Some of the customers, who spoke to our correspondent, expressed their frustration over their inability to make withdrawals on time.

A customer, who gave her name as Odon George, said she had been standing in the queue for over two hours just to withdraw N10,000 at the FCMB ATM in Bwari.

She lamented, “I usually don’t like visiting ATMs on the outskirts during weekends to make withdrawals because of the long queues that we usually experience.

“But I need money to solve an urgent issue; that was why I came here this afternoon and I have been standing in this queue for over two hours. As you can see, the queue is very long and there are only two ATMs dispensing cash out of four ATMs mounted here.

“I learnt that all the ATMs were loaded with cash a few minutes ago and I’m not surprised that two of them are out of cash already because the crowd here is much. It’s a festive season and everyone needs money for shopping. This is why we have long queues here.”

A customer of First Bank, who gave his name simply as Joseph, attributed the long queue to banks’ poor quality of service.

He said, “Some of these banks have issues of poor service and that is one of the things causing the long queues. Take for instance, I was at Skye Bank’s ATM this morning and it wasn’t working. So, I left to work and came back this afternoon to queue at the First Bank ATM and as you can see, only one out of the five ATM points is dispensing cash.

“Why are the other three not dispensing cash? If all the cash points were paying, the queue won’t be this long. But as you can see, we have over 50 people here waiting to make withdrawals.”