Frustrating Experience as a Director on an NPC Account with FNB

Review of FNB’s Service and Customer Experience

As the treasurer of a non-profit society, I needed to be added as a signatory to our FNB account. Unfortunately, my experience with FNB throughout this process was frustrating and inefficient.

Firstly, FNB retained an outdated address of mine, likely from a past home loan application that I did not proceed with. I was unaware that they had retained this information, and despite providing the requested proof of my current address, they refused to update it remotely. Instead, I was required to visit a branch in person. I went to the Hilton branch on Tuesday, 25 March, where I waited 40 minutes to see a consultant, followed by a 10-minute process to update my address—an unnecessary inconvenience that took an hour out of my day, including travel time.

Furthermore, when reviewing the 20-page business agreement, I identified multiple errors on pages 5 and 6—despite only briefly scanning the document. When I raised this with FNB, I received the following response from Phello Xati:

"The customer agreement is a standard terms and conditions for all clients that have a transactional account with FNB, stating who has authority to transact on the account. The error you are talking about—can you kindly highlight them for us so that we can refer it to our legal team, as customer agreements are drafted by our legal team."

This response was highly concerning. Instead of taking responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of their own legal documents, they expected me to review and correct their contract for them—without compensation.

I then received a follow-up response from Mpume Khumalo:

"I have been advised by legal that the terms and conditions agreement is prepopulated. If there are details the customer is not comfortable with, they can make amendments manually, and the Bank will accept accordingly, provided that the changes do not prejudice the Bank."

This response demonstrates a complete lack of accountability from FNB. Rather than acknowledging and correcting their own mistakes, they shift the burden onto the client to amend errors in a legally binding document.

FNB’s approach in this matter has been both unprofessional and inefficient. Higher management should review both the conduct of these individuals and the processes within the legal department to ensure that such errors do not occur. It is unacceptable for clients to be expected to correct errors in official banking documents.