Claim: First Bank is giving Loans to the Public as advertised on its website on Facebook
Verdict: Misleading 
Background

On September  29th, 2024,  a Facebook page with the username The News shared a post with a direct web link stating that FirstBank of Nigeria is offering loans to Nigerians without needing any documents.

The post was attached with a graphic photograph with the FirstBank logo, designed to highlight the available loan options for interested customers. The highlighted amounts of money available for the loan offers range from N1 million to N1,ooo in ascending order. The graphic design also carried boldly written instructions, stating, “Need a FirstBank Loan? Apply Now.” The link attached to the post to obtain the available loan option is here

While the post is yet to garner much reaction, the page, The News, used to broadcast the message has over 10,000 likes and followers. This indicates the number of people who have come across the post on social media.

This claim is coming up at a time when Nigeria is facing economic hardship and a high cost of living, caused by the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of Naira. As a result, Nigeria’s inflation rate has skyrocketed, and the Naira has plummeted to a record low in the foreign exchange rate.

Due to the pervasive hardship in the country, Nigerians have resolved to seek loans from financial institutions, such as Fintech and traditional banks, for survival and to sustain themselves accordingly. 

Against this backdrop, there has been an array of information disorders to play on the vulnerability of members of the public. To address this, NDR decided to check this claim and ascertain whether the web link attached to the post that FirstBank is giving loans without documents is accurate.

Verification

To ascertain the veracity of the claim posted on Facebook to determine whether or not the offering of a loan by FirstBank, we clicked on the website attached to the post, which is BalanceMyWealth, this took us to another page which does not have any information related to FirstBank loan or financial content. Instead, the website contains information about how to apply for Jobs and USA visas.

Screenshot of the website attached to the claim

Further findings on WHOIS, a query and response protocol used for querying databases and storing Internet resources, including domain names, IP address blocks, and autonomous systems, show that the website is not authentic, and does not have active status. This indicates that the link attached to the claim is a Phishing website set up to mislead the public.

Screenshot of the Phishing website review from WHOIS

For clarity, we visited FirstBank official website to check the procedures for obtaining a loan from the financial institution. We discovered that the bank has some requirements, which include input of personal data and BVN, among other things in the image below.

Images Showing the Procedures to Obtain Loans from the FirstBank

We also checked the promo page on the FirstBank official website to corroborate our findings and noticed that though the bank has a promo plan for customers who are just opening accounts, it has nothing to do with the claim as posted on the Facebook page.

Screenshot of the FirstBank Promo Page

Images Showing procedures to partake in FirstBank Promo

Meanwhile, our attempts to contact FirstBank were futile; we called its helpline multiple times between Monday, September 30th and the time of publication of this report, but our calls continued to ring without a response from the bank. 

We also reached out to the bank on its official X handle, and make enquiry about the claim, but we did not get any response from the page, despite evidence of responses to other social media users.

Screenshot of the enquiry with FirstBank on its X handleConclusion: 

Our findings revealed that the link attached to the claim that FirsBank provides loans is a phishing website that could mislead the public. Therefore, the claim is misleading