Zero queues, Zero Paperwork, an Instant verification process, and the ability to deposit money to your account all define Stanbic Bank’s self-registration online process to get you a fully functional bank account.

Based on your needs, to open a Stanbic Account online, you need close to the same requirements needed for account registration at a physical bank branch. Key requirements include a passport photo taken in the last 6months, a national ID or Passport, and a Student ID as listed below.

Requirements to Open a Online Stanbic Bank Account

• A Clear Passport Size Photo 
• Signature Image (A Graphic of your Signature signed on a paper)
• If Ugandan, a valid National ID (front & back) is needed
• If Non-Ugandan, a Valid Passport & Visa are required
• If a student, you can use a Student ID 

As a standard, the uploaded passport photo must be shared in readable image formats like .jpg and not document formats. Additionally, Webcam images can be accepted if taken in front of a plain white wall/surface with your ears and eyes well visible.

Additionally, before opening your account, you must download the bank’s account terms and conditions to be well aware of your rights to the account and how you can use it. Likewise, you need to keep a note of charges that will be affiliated to your account once opened.

Well, once you acquire the necessary requirements to open up your new account, you can then visit the Stanbic Bank root website to locate an orange section with an APPLY NOW button.

Once clicked, you’ll be redirected to a landing page where you can download necessary documents, and again click an ‘Open Account Here Button’ filled with an orange gradient to access the registration form.

How to Open a Stanbic Bank Account Online

• From your device browser (Google Chrome, Firefox or Edge) visit www.stanbicbank.co.ug
• On the Home page, scroll down and locate the “Online Account Opening” section and click the “APPLY NOW” button.

• You will be redirected to the Personal Account Online Page
• From their, Scroll through the listed details and locate the “Ready to Start” section to click the “Open Account Here” button.

• A New Tab will be oped for you to fill-in you to start a new Application
• From here, choose the appropriate option of either “New Application” to start over or “Previous Application” to resume an Application.
• Next up, fill in the required personal details and choose your preferences where given the options.

• Once Entered, Agree to the Bank’s Terms and Conditions to proceed.
• Then, you’ll be required to upload your account attachments in the formats of either PDF or JPG as per the requirements list.
• Once Uploaded, Go to the confirmation, and here receive your new account reference number.
• Once your New account is confirmed, you will receive a text message containing your OTP (One Time Pin) and account number for mobile and online banking.
• Done: You just created a new Stanbic Bank Account, to get a Debit VISA Card, simply visit your nearest branch with your national ID and UGX 20,000 as the opening fee to receive a copy.

How to Access Stanbic Bank Mobile Banking

• Dial *290# – the Stanbic Bank Mobile Banking shortcode
• If you just created a new account, enter the One Time PIN (OTP) sent to your number, you’ll then be able to change the PIN from the menu.
• From the main *290# root menu, you can then check your Bank Account balance, make payments, Buy Airtime among other functions.
• Either way, you can download the Stanbic Bank App from the Google or Apple Store for quick mobile banking
• For Internet Banking Visit: ibanking.stanbicbank.co.ug to enter your account username and password to access your Bank account.
• Done: You can always enjoy Mobile Banking by using your Smartphone.

In a nutshell, Stanbic Bank is one of the best Banking institutions in Uganda, and so, opening up an account just got easier with their new online directory that instantly guarantees you a valid account once Signup is complete.

In a like manner, with mobile banking, you can always send and receive money on your MTN Mobile Money or Airtel Money account with ease. Although the bank recently suffered a Black hat attack, mobile and Internet banking are still the best portals you can use in this current COVID19 Pandemic period.

In IT security, hacker backdoors are often realized through the interoperability of various systems running different code. In the case of MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money, the ability for customers to make direct bank and cross-network transfers caused a vulnerability.

Reportedly, Pegasus Technologies – a Ugandan IT systems company is one of the authorized MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money API providers that make it possible for customers to transact with specific underlying services including the ability to transact with bank accounts.

Other known authorized Mobile Money API companies in Uganda include Africa is Talking, Beyonic, Yo Uganda, among many others. But in the course of last week, Pegasus Technologies reportedly fell prey of attackers that robbed MTN and Airtel Money funds with Stanbic Bank as their stable link of choice.

How Hackers attacked MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money

With Cybersecurity as a growing concern in the world, backdoors are known to be present in several IT systems including most sophisticated services hosted in secure and well set up data centers.

Through a vulnerable backdoor reportedly discovered at Pegasus Technologies, Hackers got direct access to Mobile Money systems by disguising transactions as valid processes between customers and Stanbic Bank as well as to other telcos (MTN – Airtel and Vice versa).

Notably, Pegasus handles MTN-Airtel and Airtel-MTN as well as other telco to telco mobile money transfer processes. On top of that, the company handles Stanbic Bank’s Flexi Pay service that allows customers to pay for goods and services using mobile money.

So, on Thursday 1st October 2020, Hackers plotted a rogue attack on Pegasus systems and disguised silent transactions as MTN to Airtel, Airtel to MTN, MTN to Stanbic Bank, and Airtel to Stanbic Bank, as well as Stanbic Bank to Mobile money transfers.

Routing safely through Thursday night, to Friday, until Saturday. Within the short timeframe, hackers had reportedly sent themselves over UGX 1.3 Billion, withdrawn over UGX 900 Million on Airtel money, and double the amount through MTN Mobile Money.

“From Thursday night, the hack went on undetected until Saturday. By this time, hackers had sent themselves almost UGX1.3 billion but had managed to withdraw UGX900 million from Airtel Money. We estimate MTN also lost almost twice the same amount of money since they are mobile money leaders. When the fraud was detected all transactions going through Pegasus Technologies, were suspended,”

A Source told the CEO East Africa Magazine

With only IGX 1.3billion earmarked as an estimate, the hackers may have transacted more money to each other within the dark timeframe (Thursday night to Saturday) before being blocked out. So, the figure is estimated to be higher with more billions of shillings expected to be declared as lost.

Why Hackers Targeted MTN, Airtel and Stanbic

• Financial Gain (Theft)
• Utilize the chance of a vulnerable backdoor (failed/corrupt databases)
• Steal customer funds (mobile money and bank balances)
• To bankrupt mobile money service operators and cause insecurity beliefs/alarms.

Apparently, several Ugandan news blogs have attached the recent hacks to the growing political atmosphere in Uganda. However, by pure standards, the hack is not associated with any political movement or pressure resulting into the loss of funds by the trio.

Instead, a group of hackers utilised a backdoor (Pegasus) to gain control over mobile money transactions, and in the end transferred a huge sum of money between owned accounts with only UGX 1.3billion sighted as the leaked amount at the moment.

Hence, the core reason why hackers attacked mobile money systems hosted by MTN, Airtel and further used Stanbic bank as an extra gateway through a 3rd party portal, was to utilise the End of Month window (a peak timeframe for Bank and mobile money transactions) to run rogue code, and sniff targeted brands.

By IT security standards, the vulnerability option may have been located in Pegasus’ systems code. Although IT companies route with closed source code/software not supported with GNU licenses (open source), a vulnerability in code can’t fail to miss in the mix which could be with a missing update or system fault.

While speaking to CEO Magazine, the Pegasus Technologies Managing Director Ronald Azirwe could neither admit that hackers attacked through a backdoor at the company nor deny as he said:

“Sadly I can’t comment on that. I can’t confirm or deny anything of the sort. I can’t speak about it. MTN/Stanbic/Airtel should be able to tell you whether it is Pegasus or not,”

Mr. Ronald Azirwe told a reporter

The MTN, Airtel, and Stanbic Security Response to the Attacks

Through a Joint press release shared with the Tech Point Magazine team, MTN, Airtel, and Stanbic acknowledged the presence of an issue that hit the institutions, but didn’t spread to customer accounts noting that account balances were not affected.

Henceforth, Attackers successfully launched attacks on Thursday night, went successful through Friday, only for their presence to be noticed on Saturday 3rd October.

In a bid to block the attackers activity, MTN and Airtel blocked access to mobile money accounts as a measure to implement a Denial of Service (DOS) status to safeguard customer accounts.

However, this did go well with unsuspecting customers who took waged war on the hosting telcos via Twitter and shared their grievances.

At the moment, Stanbic Bank has also activated a DOS (Denial of Service) mode blocking their *290# mobile banking service until the root cause of the attack is identified, and the backdoor sealed to avoid future incidences.

For now, security authorities are on the hunt for the group of black hat hackers who may have robbed MTN, Airtel, and Stanbic in a period of less than 3-days with rogue transactions performed through a 3rd party provider system.