Bank searches for elusive software solution
The frustrated, and in some cases outright profane, complaints lodged against Butterfield Bank continued through social media into the weekend, as the leading financial institution struggled to complete an “upgrade to banking systems”.
The upgrade began more than ten days ago and by Easter Monday, a week ago today, it was anticipated that it would be all systems go. Instead, it has been a week of alternating success and frustration on the part of the customers and bank officials. Some customers have had their accounts fully regularised.
And as the bank opens this morning, others can only hope they join them.
There has been no explanation so far as to the cause of the problems, but at least one account holder has called for an official inquiry, posting online that bank regulators and the Government should be asking some hard questions and levying penalties.
By Friday, the mounting complaints were spilling onto online platforms, included the inability to pay employees and bills due.
The bank said that addressing issues facing its corporate clients was a top priority.
Customers who called The Royal Gazette reported that the beneficiaries list in their corporate account had disappeared, causing issues for Friday and mid-month pay days.
Customers were also faced with difficulties transferring funds to other local banks.
These issues, and others, arose after Butterfield instituted the systems upgrade over the Easter weekend.
Before the close of business for the week, a bank spokesman said: “Our team continues to work on fixing the outstanding issues being experienced by some clients urgently and in priority order.
“The processing of a limited number of online payments for our corporate clients, including some related to payroll and the ability to view beneficiaries, was at the top of that list on Friday morning.
“It is something we expect to have resolved without clients needing to recreate their beneficiaries or templates.”
The bank took its Butterfield Online system down the day before Good Friday to work on a systems upgrade over the holiday weekend.
The system went live again on Easter Monday morning, with customers immediately complaining about being locked out of accounts and about payments from their accounts being duplicated.
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