MTN, Airtel, Stanbic Suspend Bank to MM Service After Breach

Leading telecoms MTN, Airtel Uganda together with Stanbic Bank last night announced suspension of their Bank to Mobile Money transaction services.

The suspension follows “system incident at a third-party service provider” which affected the transactions, the companies said .

In a joint statement, MTN, Airtel and Stanbic bank revealed that the breach took place on Saturday 3 October 2020.

“All Bank to Mobile Money/Wallet services have since been temporarily suspended,” the companies announced.

“This system incident has had no impact on any balances on both Bank and Mobile Money accounts.”

“Our technical teams are analysing the incident and will restore services as soon as possible.”

The companies however, remained tight-lipped on the circumstances under which the incident took place.

In a phone interview, Cathy Adengo, the Stanbic Bank Corporate Communications Manager declined to name the said third party service provider.

However, some outlets reported that the affected company is Pegasus Technologies, which integrates mobile money transactions between telecoms, banks, and other local, regional, and international money transfer services.

The reports also purported that the company system was hacked by unknown people, who proceeded to transfer over Shs 1billion and withdraw most of it using Mobile Money.

Mrs Adengo however, dismissed these claims saying that the incident was “not a cyber-attack” and that no money has been reported missing so far.

“Right now there is no money that has been reported lost officially. This has not been disclosed considering that investigations are currently ongoing,” she said.

“We also cannot say that it was hack because the incident regarded a system, so we have to wait until the assessment comes out.”

 

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