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PETER MEECHAM / THINGS
Westpac New Zealand Chief Executive David McLean said the bank was conducting a comprehensive review to find out what caused the widespread disruption of the systems on Monday.
Westpac Chief Executive David Mclean apologized to customers for Monday’s extended failure of the bank’s payment systems.
He said a review was underway to find out what caused the “disruption” of his payments, website, online banking and contact center.
“Yesterday we experienced a serious and widespread technology systems problem that left many of you unable to perform your banking operations, including making and receiving payments,” McLean told customers in an email just before 6 p.m.
“We know that this interruption caused many inconveniences to our clients.
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“It also happened during a difficult time for many New Zealanders, who are feeling the financial and health impacts of COVID-19.
“This incident will have created additional stress and anxiety for many of you, and I deeply regret it.”
Customers began experiencing problems in the early afternoon, and at 2.30 p.m., the bank recognized the problem with a message on its Facebook page.
Some customers posted angry comments saying they had been unable to pay for their grocery purchases as a result of the failure.
Others complained that Westpac could have notified them of the system failure before they went out to stores.
“The problem occurred in the early afternoon and affected many of our systems, including our website, online banking and the contact center,” said McLean.
“It also affected some card services and caused payment delays. Although we pride ourselves on our robustness and reliability, and have well-proven backup plans, our systems are large and complex, and this problem took a long time to resolve.
“Our staff worked all night to solve the problem, and our systems were working again this morning.”
Westpac was working to understand what had caused the system failure.
“We want to assure you that a thorough review is underway to understand the causes of this disruption and to ensure that it does not happen again,” said McLean.
Things
At 6.29pm Monday, Westpac posted on its Facebook page that it had brought its systems back online.
He said the bank had listened to customer comments.
More than 4,200 customers left messages on Westpac’s Facebook page.
“Seriously, it is time for the EFTPOS systems to be updated to report ‘Westpac System Down’ or something similar instead of the non-informative ‘Declined’,” client Deklan Martin told the bank.
Pearl Davies posted: “I am so happy that I was not the only one who waited 45 minutes at the supermarket to pay for my purchases to be declined.”
Another shopper, Ria Mana, posted her frustration at not having told him what was going on around 3pm.
“So where’s the Westpac update? It’s shopping day and I have a house full of children to feed and I can’t pay for my purchases even if there is money there. I’m not happy at all.”
Some customers tried to contact the bank by phone, but had difficulty communicating.
“After calling the call center and waiting five minutes, almost an hour has passed,” Aurelia Rose posted. “Telephone banking does not work, the application does not work and even your site does not load. I am not happy at all.
Other customers felt that Westpac should have a text notification system to alert customers when their payment systems were down so they wouldn’t go out to stores.
Ioan Bramhall said: “It would be helpful to be notified of this type of problem. I just drove 20km to the supermarket and cannot buy. An estimated time would be helpful.”
“Maybe next time I’ll text if possible so we can plan this instead of panicking?” Audrey Hill said.
Westpac responded by saying that it had also been unable to send text notifications.
“Unfortunately, our Contact Center is not working, so we have not been able to notify people. However, we are working on it.” the bank posted on its Facebook account.
