PTSB glitch ‘won’t cause loan arrears’
“As the bank migrates its payments systems to SEPA, we are aware of a small number of cases where customers have encountered difficulties in respect of direct debit payments — with some payments not being processed on schedule. We expect this issue to be resolved in the coming days,” the bank said in response to questions by the Irish Examiner.
SEPA is the Single Euro Payments Area, which concerns bank transfers and which was originally compulsory by Feb 1 has been extended to Aug 1.
PTSB declined to say how many customers had been affected by the technical glitch.
However, it said that customers whose mortgage payments are not success-fully process will not be reclassified as in arrears.
“We are processing the vast majority of the small number of affected payments manually on or close to the due date,” said a bank spokesperson.
“There is no question of customers who miss payments on foot of this issue being classified as in arrears in respect of the relevant payment where it relates to a mortgage payment.”
Problems at PTSB are the latest in a series of technical malfunctions that have hit Irish banks.
Last week, Bank of Ireland duplicated Visa debit transactions and deducted them from customers’ bank accounts due to an error.
The Central Bank said it was working with Bank of Ireland to ensure that customers were not adversely affected.
The processing problem at PTSB and Bank of Ireland comes just weeks after AIB suffered a large-scale debit card issue in the run-up to Christmas, with thousands of customers unable to withdraw cash at ATMs not operated by the bank.
Ulster Bank has also been hit by technical problems. In December, a glitch saw overnight payments being delayed.
A spokesperson for the Central Bank said that banks are expected to have robust systems in place, “and where issues that impact customers arise they should be addressed and rectified urgently”.
The spokesperson said: “In this regard, the Central Bank expects firms to communicate clearly and promptly with affected customers when a technical incident occurs, including details of the impacted service, details of alternative access to services and an undertaking that identifiable loss will be remediated.”
