Celebrity chef Dennis Ombachi has closed his NCBA Bank account after publicly complaining that the lender’s mobile application was unreliable and that reaching a customer service representative could take about an hour.
Ombachi posted that NCBA had recently become “jokes sana,” saying the application repeatedly failed and that customers were left waiting for long periods before speaking to support staff.
NCBA responded publicly by apologising for the experience and asking Ombachi to send his account number through direct message, but Ombachi replied that he had already gone to the bank and closed the account.
The public exit immediately attracted attention because Ombachi is a high profile customer with a large social media following, while his complaint echoed frustrations already documented by other NCBA and LOOP users.
NCBA’s LOOP application has attracted repeated complaints from customers reporting session expiry errors, failed payments, application crashes and difficulties completing ordinary transactions.
One customer complained that a “Session Expired” message repeatedly appeared whenever she attempted to make payments, even after logging out, reinstalling the application and trying troubleshooting measures suggested by the bank.
Another customer complained that the application repeatedly crashed while attempting till payments and continued producing the same session expiry error even after clearing the cache and reinstalling the application.
Other users have complained about failed transactions, customers being stranded after payments failed, delayed communication about service problems and customer care responses they considered generic and unhelpful.
Some customers have also complained about application redesigns, broken functionality after updates and difficulties accessing features that previously worked without problems.
Complaints are not confined to LOOP because users of NCBA NOW have previously reported bugs affecting bill payments, mobile transfers, login processes and transaction authentication.
Customers have complained about the application unexpectedly closing during transactions, delays when attempting basic banking functions and errors affecting payments and transfers.
The complaints span different periods and application versions, showing that criticism involving NCBA’s digital banking services predates Ombachi’s decision to close his account.
Ombachi’s complaint also triggered discussion about the departure of Elizabeth Okomba, who previously served as NCBA Group Head of Customer Experience before moving to Equity Group.
Okomba had taken responsibility for developing customer experience strategy, strengthening customer service governance and overseeing areas including contact centre performance during her time at NCBA.
She later moved to Equity Group, where she serves as Group Director of Customer Experience.
A former NCBA employee, Dennis Otieno, publicly reacted to the latest criticism by saying that customer service at the bank had deteriorated after Okomba left, while describing her as an exceptional customer experience executive under whom he had worked.
His remarks added another dimension to the growing criticism by linking current customer frustrations with questions about changes in leadership within the bank’s customer experience function.