In the classic 1949 comedy Whisky Galore, the inhabitants of a remote Scottish island rescue a trove of whisky from a shipwreck despite the best efforts of the forces of law and order. There was something of Whisky Galore about the scenes witnessed last Tuesday evening, when long queues suddenly materialised at ATMs across the country. Earlier that day, Bank of Ireland’s online services had begun to malfunction, with customers finding they could not access the bank’s app or website and were unable to transfer or check balances. Then, as the day wore on, unexplained sums of money started to appear in accounts. News spread rapidly on social media that people could withdraw large sums of money that they did not necessarily own and the queues soon began to form at the ATMs. Attempts by the Garda to impose some restraint on proceedings were met with a mixture of indignation and hilarity, while images of Irish people queueing for “free money” began to appear in news reports across the world.
There was no “free money” of course. Bank of Ireland has reminded customers they are liable for all withdrawals they make, while financial advisors have been busy on the airwaves, warning sternly of the damage to credit ratings should funds not be reimbursed. However, the issues of responsibility which the affair raises are not confined to the actions of individuals.
As Minister for Finance Michael McGrath pointed out this week, our growing dependence on technology for the delivery of financial services makes it essential that consumers can rely on robust and secure systems with a minimum of outages.
This is not the first time Bank of Ireland has experienced technology problems recently. In June, many of its online operations crashed for nearly a day. The bank has launched a “full and thorough investigation” into the latest issue but has offered no further information on its causes, beyond the fact that it was not due to a cyber attack.
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Failures in financial infrastructure can be just as catastrophic as outages in utilities or other vital services. They are too important to be left to the financial institutions alone to address, and it is welcome that the Central Bank is engaging with Bank of Ireland to establish a full account of the disruption, its root cause and what the bank is doing to avoid similar issues in the future.
Bank of Ireland has undertaken an aggressive programme of branch closures in recent years as it seeks to move its customer relations from bricks and mortar to entirely online. This process has not been without controversy and will deliver substantial savings in the long run so there is no excuse for the bank not to provide and maintain technologyservices of the highest standard to its customers.