News

RBS computer failure shuts down ATMs again

March 8, 2013

Strike two for the Royal Bank of Scotland. An RBS system crash last summer that left customers unable use ATMs or online banking for a week; another computer failure on Wednesday resulted in an outage of several hours that affected customers of RBS-owned Ulster Bank.

According to a BBC report, RBS has apologized and promised to reimburse customers who might have been have been left "out of pocket" by the outage, which lasted from approximately 10:00 p.m. GMT until 1:00 a.m. GMT.

A BBC correspondent in Northern Ireland reported that customers of RBS and Nat West Bank (also owned by RBS) also were affected by the computer problem. She said that ATMs were confiscating cards and online and telephone systems weren't working properly, either.

The failure was described as "unacceptable" in a public statement by Ulster bank. "We are disappointed that our customers faced disruption to banking services for a period yesterday evening, and apologise for that." The bank did not reveal the exact cause of the outage.

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