FNB is facing growing scrutiny on two fronts: a major Black Friday disruption that left customers locked out of digital banking for hours, and fresh testimony in Parliament that a large cash withdrawal at one of its branches was used in an alleged bribe to former police minister Bheki Cele.
According to tech platform MyBroadband, FNB clients began reporting problems with the bank’s app and online banking from around 09:30 on Friday, 28 November 2025, with some unable to log in or authorise payments during peak Black Friday trading.
One business customer complained on social media:
“I have never been so inconvenienced in my life, I’m stuck with no way to process payments.”
Black Friday: what went wrong with FNB’s systems?
The outage reports described error messages on the FNB app stating: “Request cannot be processed. We are unable to process your request at the moment. The cause is being investigated.”
The same message urged customers to “please try again later,” while some who did manage to log in found that payments and transfers could not be authorised.
FNB’s own feedback indicated that while its digital channels had not gone completely offline, customers were facing “intermittent access” as systems struggled with “extraordinarily high transaction volumes”.
The bank said that by 08:05 it had recorded a 50% year-on-year increase in cumulative virtual card transactions for Black Friday.
To keep some transactions flowing, FNB relied on a fallback authorisation mechanism for certain online card payments, but this slowed checkout times and meant some purchases failed on first attempt.
Later in the day, the bank said performance across its channels was improving, noting that “some customers may still experience intermittent access but the matter is being closely managed to enhance capacity” and that online services were “returning to normal”.
Parliament hears claims about a R300 000 FNB cash withdrawal
Away from the technical issues, FNB has been drawn into a separate controversy at Parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating alleged corruption in the criminal justice system.
Businessman Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, who is testifying under oath, told MPs that his sister withdrew R300,000 in cash from an FNB branch at Menlyn Maine in Pretoria early in 2025.
He said he collected the money from her inside the mall and walked with it to his nearby penthouse apartment, insisting he did not leave the complex.
In his version, the cash later formed part of a total R500 000 he claims to have paid to Cele to secure the return of firearms and “stop harassment” after a police raid on his home.
Matlala described using a Woolworths shopping bag to carry the money, telling the committee:
“I always operate with a Woolies bag. It’s my favourite bag. It’s the money bag.”
Under questioning from the committee’s evidence leader about the risk of walking through a mall with such a large amount of cash, he maintained there was nothing unusual about the way the money was handled.
The allegations against Cele and the circumstances of the withdrawal remain untested.
Matlala is himself in custody on charges including attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and fraud, and the committee has stressed that his claims are being evaluated alongside documents, banking records and earlier testimony.
Questions for FNB over controls on large cash transactions
Under South African anti-money-laundering rules, banks are required to monitor large or unusual cash transactions and file reports with the Financial Intelligence Centre where activity appears suspicious.
Matlala’s account of the R300,000 withdrawal has prompted scrutiny over how such transactions are assessed in practice and what questions bank staff are expected to ask when clients request high-value cash.
At the time of writing, the parliamentary inquiry had not indicated whether it would call FNB or regulators to explain the handling of the withdrawal described in Matlala’s evidence, and the bank has not publicly commented on his claims.
