Emergency motion filed on 'disappearance' of monies from BML accounts

An emergency motion has been submitted to the Parliament over increased cases of 'disappearance' of monies deposited by Bank of Maldives’ (BML) customers to their accounts – in order to bring the issue to the government’s attention.

Presenting his motion at Tuesday’s parliamentary sitting, Nolhivaram MP Mohamed Nasheed alleged that sensitive information shared with BML is behind many such cases.

He said such scams are carried out via phone or the internet.

MP Nasheed said that although complaints of hard-earned income disappearing in mere seconds are filed with BML and the Police, the lost money is never recovered while the complainant is subjected to additional difficulties. Subsequently, the trust placed on the bank by the public is wavering, he also said. 

Citing these reasons – he called on BML and the government to solve the issue.

The emergency motion was accepted with the unanimous votes of 33 parliamentarians in attendance during the voting.

Some of the parliamentarians who debated on the motion accused some BML staff of being complicit in such cases. Other parliamentarians linked the disappearance of monies to the carelessness of the customers.

In light of an increase in scams, the Bank of Maldives (BML) made changes to its QR payment limits Tuesday. As such, the maximum limit for each QR transaction through the bank’s mobile wallet has been set to MVR 750, and the bank has set a daily limit of 10 QR transactions.

The police and banks continue to warn customers to be cautious of such scams, including refraining from clicking unknown links, and sharing internet banking information and passwords with others.