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CHAOS-HIT ULSTER BANK will this weekend open more of its branches as it struggles to deal with a backlog of customer payments.
Some 36 of the bank’s high street outlets in the Republic of Ireland will be open tomorrow. The bank has opened two further branches over the 34 that were open last Saturday.
On Sunday morning, 12 branches will open in major towns around the country.
The news comes after Ulster Bank CEO Jim Brown bowed to pressure and said he would not take a bonus this year, just hours after he had repeatedly refused to discuss giving up the payment in the face of questioning from TDs and Senators.
All bill payments made in branches after June 20 have not been processed, after a software glitch hit on June 19.
The bank has told customers that they can use their credit cards to withdraw money from ATMs without incurring cash advance fees – but only if the money is paid back within a month.
Executives have repeatedly said that nobody will be out of pocket as a result of the chaos.
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Wow serious punishment no bonus instead 1 million hes going to take just 750K this year I am worried how this poor man is going to meet his ends now. In my job it wouldn’t be matter of bonus but matter of being sacked right away. But hey Whats new, bankers in Ireland living a dream above anyone.
I’m going to advise my son to follow a career in banking. It seems to be the best gig in town: plenty of lolly, no accountability, bonuses on offer when clearly not merited, power and influence. . . . and all hidden behind the boring grey veil of anonymity.
Mind you, if he actually took my advice I’d have to drown him or disown him.
No cash advance fees if pay back within a month!!! Fair play to him for the generosity allowed to UB customers who have been penalised for 3 week now and counting.
I’m in IT for a bank in the States. I gotta say this carryon wouldn’t fly over here for a few days let alone a few weeks. Heads would roll big time and rightly so. It’s really unbelievable to me. The public should be up in absolute arms (more so). When it’s finally resolved everyone who has an account with UB should move it elsewhere. Make them realize that their lack of business continuity planning has a price. I’ll certainly be encouraging my mother to move her accts.
One big difference is that by now lawyers would already be working on a class action lawsuit on behalf of those affected. That alone would be a pretty powerful incentive for a bank to get it’s ass in gear and sort things out.
Here, we don’t have class action lawsuits and the bank knows that most people will not pursue them for compensation over and above whatever petty amount is offered and that even if they did they would not as individuals have the kind of clout that a class action can bring.
I’m so tired of this now, I’m not even with Ulster Bank and I’m affected by the bank’s ineptitude!
Question still unanswered WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED?
CEO Jim Browne should be sacked and the whole IT Dept Sacked,
Mind blowing in this day and age that this can happen Northern Rock comes to mind
It is interesting that Six on One never showed a clip of Brown’s refusal to discuss the matter of his bonus, but TV 3 news at 5.30 did. I was struck by what seemed to be an utter lack of bother and a lack of knowledge about whether they had cut IT in their bank. Flabbergasted.
No cash advance fees if pay back within a month!!! Fair play to him for the generosity allowed to more than patient UB customers who have been penalised for 3 weeks now and counting. The situation is surely in controllable that am sure they don’t even know what has happened. Bet many customer’s account data has been lost.
I’m abroad and my current acc is full w double transactions eating my balance that is soon down to zero because of this..really nice…and yesterday 400 EUR disappeared aswell without any explanation..
Man! I can only imagine how annoying / stressful that must be. I’m only waiting for some payments to come in, two weeks and counting…
Seriously, seriously, I personally am sceptical that they actually CAN figure out how much money is eventually meant to be in anyone’s account. At one point that made a statement to that effect; we don’t know how much money our customers have. Full stop.
If that happens, then what?
We’ve been told over and over, this will be resolved in a few days, and the deadline keeps slipping… is anyone from the government actually doing more than expressing concern?
Seriously, they need their commercial license pulled, they need their booked audited and they need to return all the money owned to customers, who can then put it into another bank, hide it in a mattress, etc.
This is going to end badly me thinks.
Couldn’t agree more. From the drip drip of (admitedly scant) information they have given it seems like this mess is going to have permanent repercussions. This is what we kind of know:
They process millions of transactions each night. This fails on one night, and they seem to admit there are gaps in the record of what failed. Every day transactions keep happening – money moving into UB, out of UB, between accounts in UB. If you don’t know what happened last night, you can’t properly deal with tonight.
Keep adding ‘last nights’ and ‘tonights’, with mess piled upon mess and millions of transactions that don’t conveniently stop while you sort out what went before, and you very rapidly have insurmountable chaos. The end of this is nowhere soon.
There really must be some recourse… Possibly the Irish governement can have a word with the OWNERS of the bank (ahem) and see what can be done.
hahah..
No, I’m just kidding, no one in the Irish government is gonna help sort this out. The bank doesn’t REALLY care, and the owners, the UK taxpayers, don’t have the money/inclination to help, especially considering just how badly they’ve also been burnt by this.
There’s no real threat, so banks act however they want.
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