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Westpac has had a widespread system failure that prevents some customers from making payments.
Westpac’s online banking systems went live again on Tuesday morning, after a significant outage on Monday.
The bank said it had suffered a “widespread” failure of the systems that had affected online banking, card payments and its contact center.
The bank’s customers have been struggling to make payments and complete online banking transactions, which has left customers furious, including those trying to buy food.
But in an update to its Facebook page at 5.30 p.m., the bank said, “Most card transactions are now working, but we still have to implement a comprehensive solution.”
“We do not yet have an ETA for our solution, so we continue to experience widespread system disruption affecting access to our website, Westpac One online banking and our contact center.”
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In a previous update on its Facebook site at 2.30 pm, the bank said: “We are experiencing a widespread disruption of systems affecting access to our website, Westpac One online banking, some card services and our hub contact”.
“If your Eftpos card doesn’t work, try a credit card if possible, as we are hearing some cases of credit cards being used successfully,” Westpac said in the 2.30 p.m. message.
“Our technology teams have this as their top priority and are urgently working to fix it. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
Customers directed their anger and suggestions to the bank via Facebook, even suggesting that instead of transactions failing with a “rejected” message, the message could indicate that the reason was not because the customer did not have the funds in their account .
“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.
“I have to make an urgent payment and I’ve been stressed for two damn hours, tears and everything. I switched to you literally a week before the lockdown and I really do regret it.”
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.
