Thousands of Zenith Bank customers across Nigeria have been left frustrated and stranded as the bank’s digital platforms have remained inaccessible for two consecutive days, disrupting essential banking activities.
The disruption, which began around 8:00 a.m. on Monday, has crippled both the bank’s mobile app and USSD banking services, making it impossible for customers to send or receive funds, access their accounts, or make card-based payments and withdrawals.
“I’ve not been able to use my Zenith account for anything—no transfers, no alerts, even my card is useless at POS terminals,” said a visibly agitated customer in Lagos. “This is not the first time either.”
This outage draws uncomfortable parallels to a similar episode in 2023, when Zenith Bank experienced prolonged downtime that extended intermittently until October. Ironically, despite those issues, the bank was still named “Digital Bank of the Year” for that year—an award many now question given the recurrence of service failures.
So far, Zenith Bank has not released an official statement addressing the cause of the current disruption. However, sources within the bank indicate that the technical team is actively working to restore services, with full functionality expected to return by midnight Tuesday.
As digital banking becomes the core of Nigeria’s financial ecosystem, experts say banks must invest in robust infrastructure to ensure reliability. “Downtimes like this erode trust,” a Lagos-based fintech analyst said. “If banks want to lead in digital innovation, their platforms must be stable.”
Until services are fully restored, many customers remain locked out of their own funds, unable to carry out basic transactions—a situation increasingly seen as unacceptable in today’s fast-paced digital economy.
