Incompetence at FNB KYC Department

I opened a new business and trust account at FNB (telephonically) on 3 September, and the consultant assured me that the account will be active within a few days. I received confirmation of the account the same day and have not received any further communication since.

Being a long-standing client with FNB, I assumed the KYC already provided was in order and that I could start transacting on the account. I also monitored the KYC/FICA document upload section on FNBs online banking, which to this day states that there is no documents outstanding.

Since I did not find any reason or notice that the accounts were not active, and seeing that ALL the information available to me on the FNB platforms pointed to everything being in order, I started using the accounts (giving clients the account numbers for payments) - way after the indicated 3 day turnaround time promised by FNB.

Now, after issuing several invoices using the account numbers, several clients stated that the payments were rejected when they tried paying. With a lot of effort and holding on calls I finally managed to figure out that the KYC documents are not received by FNB, because they never sent the email requesting such (this was confirmed by FNB). However, every single person I spoke to at FNB (and there were many) could not help be unlock/activate my accounts and could merely escalate the matter. In the meantime my business is being adversely affected, both financially and on reputation.

All I need is for FNB to put me in touch with the person who can activate my account IMMEDIATELY, because hearing “we have escalated the matter” once more will cause me to move ALL of my personal, investment, savings and business accounts to another bank who is willing to sort the issue out (or not even have the issue to start with) - which was caused by FNB not doing their administrative duties.