Fin24 reports that Standard Bank has confirmed that more than 59 of its employees have now been implicated in suspect activities to activate MyMo accounts.

These further staff members have not yet been suspended. It was previously reported that employees and their managers signed up customers by depositing small amounts of their own money – and allegedly also money from a communal "kitty box" – to activate “ghost” accounts, which helped them to reach company targets. Dismissed staff members claim the instruction to open the accounts came from their superiors. "A larger number of people [have been] implicated and are being investigated… It's larger than 59, but we are not disclosing numbers," said Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala. He contended that the number of people under investigation was constantly changing, but didn't elaborate on why some had been suspended and others not. Standard Bank has also not broken down the numbers to indicate how many of the fired and suspended employees were managers. The bank previously said it would communicate the findings of its investigation and ensure that these were independently reviewed. Tshabalala said those investigations were still under way. But, he added, initial indications were that this was not widespread behaviour in the bank and that “the number of accounts in question is very minimal. It's less than 0.1%.” Tshabalala also said it was incorrect to call them "ghost accounts" – even though many of them have never had any active transactions other than the few rand deposited by the now-suspended staff members.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Londiwe Buthelezi at Fin24 (subscriber access only)

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