Britain's TSB Bank, owned by Spain's Banco Sabadell, faced continuing problems with its digital services on Tuesday as Royal Bank of Scotland's Irish unit also reported an issue that led to salaries going missing from some accounts.
TSB, which apologised on Monday after some customers were unable to access their accounts online, said it needed to take its mobile application and online banking down for a "few hours" after working for 48 hours to fix the problem.
The bank said about 402 customers on Sunday were able to see data that they would not usually see online, often of so called "connected accounts" that family members typically use.
"I'm truly sorry," TSB Chief Executive Officer Paul Pester said in a statement, adding that the services should be back online later on Tuesday.
Nicky Morgan, chair of the British parliament's influential Treasury Select Committee, said customers deserved to know how they can expect to be compensated and that she would be writing to the FCA (UK finance regulator) on the matter.
"Customers can rest assured that no one will be left out of pocket as a result of these service issues," TSB's Pester said.
Ulster Bank, the Irish unit of RBS, said on Tuesday that it was aware that some transactions applied to accounts in the Irish Republic over the last five days were not appearing.
The bank, which offered its customers access to emergency cash at its branches, said it had fixed the issues to facilitate the recovery of the funds overnight and that the problem was the result of a human error, not connected to a 2012 IT issue.
The bank, Ireland's third largest, suffered a huge system crash in 2012 that deprived customers of basic banking services for almost a month and cost it 59 million euros in compensation and a 3.5 million euro fine from the country's central bank.
Customers had complained to the bank's customer services account on Twitter that large sums were missing, debit cards had been declined and in some cases accounts were overdrawn.
"It's a very concerning development for any customer of any bank to be worried about where their money has gone," Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told reporters earlier on Tuesday, adding that the central bank was reviewing the matter. (Reuters)
Source: www.businessworld.ie
