Bank of Ireland CEO apologises for tech outage: 'We need to do better' 

Bank of Ireland's technical glitch on Tuesday allowed some customers to withdraw up to €1,000 from an ATM even if they did not have the funds available to do so. Picture Liam McBurney/PA Wire

The chief executive of Bank of Ireland has apologised for the technical glitch which led to chaotic scenes at ATMs earlier this week.

Myles O'Grady said the company "fell below the standards expected" due to the glitch on Tuesday.

Customers of the bank were unable to access their online banking or mobile app services, while ATMs were allowing some customers to withdraw up to €1,000 even if they did not have the funds available to do so.

Gardaí were involved at one stage, with pictures and videos showing officers blocking access to ATMs around the country. 

BOI confirmed that accounts were 'up to date' on Thursday morning.

Mr O'Grady said: "This was a Bank of Ireland issue and our customers were impacted badly by this failure. We fell well below the standards our customers expect of us and I apologise sincerely for this.

Banking is based on reputation and trust. We have damaged this with our customers and wider society. We are working to put things right.

He said the bank's priority in the immediate aftermath of the glitch was that customers would continue to have access to cash and could transact on their cards.

He said: "The challenge in doing this during an outage is that customers couldn’t check their balance and some may now find themselves overdrawn. I encourage any customers who were impacted by this week’s incident to contact us so that we can work together to find an appropriate solution."

Mr O'Grady added there were a number of supports in place for customers affected, including interest-free temporary overdrafts.

He concluded: "Our focus this week is on restoring services, ensuring the stability of our systems, and helping customers. 

"But, we know we need to do better in future. We continue to invest in our technology to ensure customers have the very best banking services."

Uninterrupted access is vital

The Finance minister has said there is a need to establish a full account of the Bank of Ireland outage because there have been “too many such instances in recent years”.

Speaking from Kent Station in Cork, Michael McGrath told reporters that it was “vital” that people have uninterrupted access to banking services.

"In recent years, we have had a number of instances where systems errors or systems outages took place.

"That’s why I’ve asked my own officials in the Department of Finance now to engage with the Central Bank, with the regulator, to gain an understanding of their assessments of the robustness of the systems being used by financial service providers, in particular those that are customer facing, to make sure that services can continue unhindered.

"Because, when you have outages like this, it can cause problems: very significant disruption to people’s personal lives, to the conduct of business, and it can have an impact on our economy.

"I do think we have had too many such instances in recent years, and I want to be assured that the necessary investment is being put into systems where the public are interfacing with private companies, in terms of accessing their own money in particular."