Bandits hack into the systems of Pegasus Technologies, a company that integrates mobile money transactions between Telcoms, Banks, and other local, regional, and international money transfer services, making off with billions of Shillings.
Pegasus handles financial transactions such as mobile money aggregation, mobile payments and remittances, loans and savings, and value-added services i.e. SMS, airtime, and data loading. Several institutions including banks, telecom companies, and utility companies such, retailers, Pay-Tv providers’ and schools, have contracted the company to aggregate and manage financial transactions for both internal and external purposes.
The affected firms include telecom companies, Airtel and MTN Uganda, as well as Stanbic Bank, Uganda’s.
In a joint statement by the CEO’s, Anne Juuko (Stanbic Bank), Wim Vanhelleputte (MTN Uganda), and VG Somasekhar (Airtel Uganda), admitted that they experienced an unfortunate electronic fraud/ transaction activity.
“Stanbic Bank Uganda, MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda inform the public and their customers that on Saturday 3 October 2020, a third-party service provider experienced a system incident which impacted Bank to Mobile Money transactions. All Bank to Mobile Money/Wallet services have since been temporarily suspended,” the team said.
“This system incident has had no impact on any balances on both Bank and Mobile Money accounts. Our technical teams are analyzing the incident and will restore services as soon as possible. We apologize to all customers for any inconvenience that this has caused and reiterate our commitment to delivering seamless banking and mobile money services,” they added.
The fraud incident took shape on Thursday night and was noticed on Saturday. The matter has been reported to the Criminal Investigations Directorate for investigation as all transactions that are meant go through Pegasus Technologies are suspended until further notice.
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