Westpac customers endured one of the industry’s most protracted system outages in 2020 after an attempt to upgrade internet and mobile platforms turned haywire on Monday morning.
Customers were locked out of the online banking services for seven hours after problems with the system were detected at around 8am.
A meltdown of the platforms was apparent at 9am when customers flooded Westpac’s social media pages with complaints.
At 3.42 in the afternoon the bank announced that it had ironed out problems with the online banking systems, although some customers continued to report access and performance issues using internet banking through the evening.
Small business customers were also reporting problems getting their merchant terminals to operate after the bank said the outage had been fixed.
“Mobile and internet banking is back up and running for customers following a system issue earlier today,” a Westpac spokesperson said in an email statement sent at 4pm on Monday.
“The issue occurred this morning following scheduled Westpac Live updates and we are thoroughly investigating the matter.
“This is not the standard of service we aim to provide our customers and we’re sorry for the inconvenience caused.”
Westpac’s online customer service staff did not respond to requests from customers for reimbursements for late fees they were likely to incur from utilities and other banks because they were not able to complete payments in time for overnight processing.
The bank also drew criticism from customers for not giving more information during the day as the outage dragged on.
“You need to put some info on your main website, so at least people know that you are aware of the problem,” one Twitter user told the bank.
“It’s just basic communication to your customers.”
The four major banks are under pressure from regulators such as APRA and the Reserve Bank to reduce the frequency and duration of outages to build public confidence in the use of non-cash payment methods.
While Westpac and the other major banks have not experienced any protracted outages extending beyond 10 hours this year, the frequency of outage incidents remains high according to data collated by online website, downdetector.com.au.
Westpac customers have reported 17 separate outage incidents in 2020, with more than half occurring since the start of July.
While ANZ customers have reported the most outages among the major banks this year, most lasted less than two hours.
According to Down Detector ANZ customers have been affected by 23 incidents since the start of January.
ANZ incident record had been tracking in line with peers until July when the bank was hit with seven incidents. CBA has reported 18 incidents.
NAB, which has a wretched record of service outages, has experienced the least number of performance issues with online banking systems going down on only 15 occasions this year.
The latest incident at Westpac did not affect online services offered through its regional banking brands – St George, Bank SA and Bank of Melbourne.