Ulster Bank customers left in dark over ‘goodwill’ payouts

The 600,000 customers affected by Ulster Bank’s recent computer systems failure could be waiting for months to find out if they are to receive additional compensation payments to the account reimbursements already promised.

Ulster Bank yesterday put the initial cost of what it refers to as its “technology incident” — which disrupted salary transfers, direct debit transactions, and social welfare payments for 600,000 of its 1.9m customers — at €35m.

However, the bank’s chief executive, Jim Brown, said that cost would probably grow by “tens of millions” of euro by the time the matter is finally put to rest.