Computer glitch hits Ulster Bank in North

The Central Bank says it has contacted Ulster Bank after bank payments in the North and lenders owned by parent group Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in Britain were hit early yesterday by a new computer glitch.

The latest problems to hit RBS follow the huge problems at RBS’s computers in Edinburgh that effectively paralysed Ulster Bank operations for two weeks across Ireland three years ago.

The 2012 computer problems were considered so serious that the Central Bank last November fined Ulster Bank €3.5m. It also demanded that RBS separate Ulster computers from its other Edinburgh overnight batch processes that handled RBS’s other banks NatWest and Coutt’s. Ulster Bank also offered compensation for customers at the time.

Britain’s regulator fined RBS £56m (€78.2m) for the same 2012 breakdown that left 6.5m customers unable to make or receive payments for days. In 2013, NatWest services were also affected by a cyber attack on its website.

RBS said yesterday’s problems affected 600,000 customer transactions in Ireland and Britain which had not been processed after another technology problem at the bank. The bank said the cause of the problem had been identified and it was working to resolve missed wages, benefit payments, bill payments and other credit or direct debit payments for customers at Ulster Bank in the north and at NatWest and Coutt’s in Britain.

The Central Bank said that it had contacted Ulster Bank, but had been reassured that the problems did not affect customers in the republic.

• Additional reporting Reuters