David Oladimeji
Access Bank Plc says it has fully restored its customs transaction services after a brief but disruptive technical glitch that slowed cargo clearance activities at Lagos ports earlier in the week.
The temporary disruption, which occurred between November 10 and 12, 2025, left clearing agents and importers stranded as payments through the bank’s ACCESS PAY (B’ODOGWU) platform failed to process.
Many agents had voiced their frustration on Tuesday, lamenting that cargoes were trapped at terminals while demurrage charges piled up by the hour.
In a statement released on Thursday, Access Bank explained that the downtime was caused by a connectivity breakdown between its internal network and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) system.
According to the bank, the malfunction created a bottleneck that froze all Customs-linked transactions and prevented users from accessing the services they rely on to complete cargo documentation.
The bank confirmed that its engineers worked extensively with NCS technical teams to trace the source of the disruption and restore the affected channel.
By November 12, 2025, Access Bank said full service functionality had returned, allowing customers to resume customs payment processing without further challenges.
“The issue was fully resolved yesterday, November 12, 2025, and normal service operations have since been completely restored,” the bank assured in the statement.
Access Bank acknowledged the inconvenience the disruption caused, especially for importers and clearing agents battling to avoid rising storage and demurrage fees.
It emphasized that the temporary setback underscored the importance of constant system monitoring and rapid troubleshooting within Nigeria’s trade facilitation ecosystem.
The bank further explained that it is implementing fresh preventive measures to ensure that similar disruptions do not recur in the future.
According to Access Bank, these measures include system redundancies, enhanced monitoring dashboards, and strengthened integration protocols with the NCS gateway.
The financial institution also extended appreciation to its customers, noting that their patience and understanding helped ease the pressure during the service downtime.
“We remain committed to service reliability, customer satisfaction, and the smooth functioning of trade-related payments,” the bank added.
With the restoration of services, clearing operations at Lagos ports are expected to pick up speed again, reducing the backlog that built up during the period of disruption.
Stakeholders say they hope the incident will serve as a reminder of the critical role financial institutions play in sustaining seamless port operations and ensuring efficient trade flows across the country.
