Moroccan Banks Face Scrutiny Over Opaque Account Closure Practices

According to the reasons mentioned by L’économiste, it appears that, to manage its operations, each bank adopts the convention taking into account its equipment and the profile of its customers.

Most often, the customer shows an incredible inattention. He, "in the majority of cases, does not pay attention to the terms of the contract and does not read it before signing it. It is only when a problem arises that he consults the account agreement. Yet, not all banks provide it automatically," the newspaper notes.

An operation that is nevertheless free, the closure of an account can be a tedious process and is the main source of dispute between banks and their customers, the newspaper points out.

"The bank will have to transmit free of charge to the customer or to his new bank, if he has authorized it to carry out the procedures for changing the institution, a summary of the usual automatic operations recorded in the account over the last six months, within 30 working days following the request for account closure," details L’économiste.

While the same deadline is required for the bank to close the account, it will take it a year, on the other hand, in the case of an overdrawn account on which there is no more movement, the newspaper specifies. In this case, the customer receives a registered letter informing him of the process.

However, the failure of the information system in some cases is at the origin of the claim to several customers of the payment of fees, years after the closure of their account, notes the same source.