Nine-week fix needed at NAB

It took National Australia bank nine weeks to sort out the payment processing mess that dogged the bank in late November 2010.

On Wednesday, NAB updated the advisory at its website to announce: "We can confirm we've fixed the issue and our payment systems continue to operate successfully."

The "issue" relates to the delay of batch-processed payments on November 26 and 27. NAB at first blamed the delays on a corrupt file and later blamed them on problematic, nine-year old coding and weak support from an external supplier.

This week's update implies that the bank completed all delayed payments by December 7, though for more than a month and half subsequent to that date the advisory at the NAB website stated that "some customers are still experiencing inconsistencies".

NAB has ignored a series of requests for access to executives with responsibility for managing the bank's payment processing and its response to the failure.

So far as this newsletter is aware the bank has offered no detailed account of the affair to any media outlet or its customers, including other banks whose payments NAB settles.

Asked once more about the issues yesterday, a media relations staffer sent through quotes from the speech made by chief executive Cameron Clyne at the bank's annual meeting seven weeks ago.

NAB said, in its website update, that it had "begun" refunding customers for fees or interest incorrectly charged or underpaid as a result of the November blunder but noted that "there will be some customers who will require additional refunds".

The website said that NAB had elected to apply an interest rate of 20 per cent on delayed payments.