Clients affected are reporting numerous cases of “illegitimate appropriation of funds” from the bank’s accounts, with amounts ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 euros.
The concerned clients claim they did not provide confirmation codes or access online banking applications at the time of the transactions, which occurred without their knowledge and without strong authentication.
They also mention that “the bank cannot demonstrate that the operations were duly authenticated” and warn that their systems “remain vulnerable, despite previous warnings and penalties.”
The report further states that there is an aggravation as the European Central Bank (ECB) has already fined Eurobic over three million euros “for serious security failures in 2022 and for not reporting mandatory incidents to the appropriate authorities.”
The clients refer to the European payment services directive PSD2, which requires the service provider to reimburse the user in the case of an unauthorized transaction.
The report indicates that an operation is considered unauthorized when the provider cannot “demonstrate that it was properly authenticated, recorded, and executed without errors”—something they claim is occurring.
The complainants assert that there was no strong authentication, that the bank cannot prove authorization, and the same failures continue to occur.
In the report, the signatories demand that the BdP officially acknowledge the non-compliance of PSD2 by Eurobic/Abanca and that they immediately reimburse all affected clients.
Simultaneously, they request a penalty against the bank for continued security failures and systematic non-compliance and to inform the ECB and the EBA (European Banking Authority) “about the persistence of these failures.”
They also urge the Portuguese regulator to “review its own actions, which have been inadequate.”
The clients mention that the central bank claims there are no bank failures, which “denies the unequivocal reality of hundreds of clients” and “multiple documented cases.”
In October, a dozen bank clients protested at the headquarters in Lisbon.
In a statement released that day, Eurobic Abanca stated that “the safety and trust of clients is the institution’s highest priority” and regretted that “fraud situations continue to affect clients across the banking system,” becoming increasingly sophisticated.
The group also stated it has been cooperating with authorities in the prevention and investigation of these crimes and “will continue to strengthen measures for prevention, detection, and raising awareness about financial fraud.”
The bank added that internal audits have concluded that “these crimes do not result from any failure or vulnerability in the bank’s computer systems, but rather from increasingly sophisticated external schemes using fake advertisements, fraudulent websites (phishing), SMS, and misleading phone calls.”
EuroBic Abanca further stated that it “understands the difficulties faced by clients” and is “available to support them.”
