PUBLIC STATEMENT

MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited was on Tuesday, 17^th January 2023,  made aware of an incident involving the fraudulent withdrawal of funds from a customer’s account at one of its dealer shops located at Garden City. To ensure swift resolution of this matter and prevent any further inconvenience to our customers, the dealer shop elected to compensate the affected individual while MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited undertook to carry out an investigation to determine how the customer was defrauded.

The investigation is now complete. MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited established that the customer was prompted to approve the transaction by an unauthorized individual who was in proximity to the customer at the time. The customer was requested to state her mobile number several times loudly enough for the unauthorized fraudulent agent to hear. This fraudulent agent then initiated the transaction which the customer approved. The intended dealer agent was therefore unable to give the customer the approved funds withdrawn as she had not in fact successfully withdrawn the funds. The staff at the dealer shop who aided this fraud has been dismissed from employment with Simba Telecom and the fraudulent agent is in police custody under case number; 73/24/01/2023.

MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited has taken steps to strengthen security measures at our dealer locations, including promoting privacy during transactions, displaying agent IDs, and implementing continuous re-authentications for all active agent lines.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this incident and remind all our customers to exercise maximum caution and follow the recommended security measures when using our mobile money services, such as not sharing personal information or PINs, opting to write the transacting number down in the provided agent books as opposed to stating the numbers out loud and verifying the agent ID before approving transactions.

MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited is committed to maintaining the highest standards of corporate governance and security. We urge all customers to remain vigilant and to contact our customer service helpline in case of any suspicious activity.

MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited is regulated by the Bank of Uganda.