Ireland: Customers withdraw money they don’t have

Originally Published: 16 AUG 23 12:07 GMT

By Hafsa Khalil, CNN

(CNN) — A technical fault meant that for several hours Tuesday customers of one of Ireland’s biggest banks could withdraw funds they did not have.

The now-resolved glitch to the Bank of Ireland’s app and website meant people were able to transfer up to €1,000 ($1,090.20) to a digital account and then withdraw that sumfrom an ATM, even if there were insufficient funds in their accounts, The Irish Times reported.

The BOI has said sorry for the incident, which saw queues form as people scrambled to exploit the fault, and which also meant some customers couldn’t access their accounts.

But the bank also warned that funds transferred and withdrawn including “over normal limits… will be debited from their account.”

“We sincerely apologize for the disruption this outage caused — we know it fell far below the standards our customers expect from us,” the bank said on social media Wednesday, adding that services had now resumed as normal.

Irish police said they were aware of the issue but told the public personal banking was “their personal responsibility.”

Not knowing what to do, people took to sharing their grievances online.

“Haven’t been able to access my account all day which is ridiculous. How are people meant to buy food or other necessities if our cards won’t even work or [we]can’t check our bank balances?!” one customer posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Another posted that they were abroad with no access to their funds or app all day.

In itslatest X post, the BOI informed customers that “overnight payments to accounts may appear throughout the day.”

This is not the first time the BOI has experienced technical problems.

In June, the Irish lender faced difficulties, with the loss of some serviceswhich some customers were quick to bring up Tuesday.

“Here we go again!! Has Bank of Ireland no contingency plan?” read one comment.

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