Clients of one of Australia’s prominent banking institutions found themselves in a bind recently, unable to access their funds due to a suspected technical glitch. ANZ bank’s online services became inaccessible for multiple customers starting around noon on a Friday, sparking frustration and worry.
Adding to their dismay, the patrons also found the bank’s telephone line unresponsive, corroborating a shared difficulty across the board. One such individual, Nicole Spaccavento, experienced an unforeseen card decline while shopping, despite having an ample balance.
Attempts to load the app proved futile and her spouse’s efforts mirrored the same result. The sheer size of the outage soon became apparent when she visited a physical branch only to realise that the issue was nationwide. ANZ was offering a stipend of $200 via ATM withdrawals per customer during this disruption. However, for Spaccavento and her unmet shopping total, this was a woefully insufficient workaround.
Addressing the situation, an ANZ spokesperson acknowledged issues affecting their app, online banking, debit and credit card transactions, ATMs, and branch services, assuring that a team of professionals was relentlessly working towards rectifying the matter as swiftly as possible. Although apologies were issued for the inconvenience, the timing of this interruption, notably the eve of a long weekend, was heavily criticised by users.
The inconvenience was not limited to individual account holders. Businesses found themselves locked out of their accounts, unable to handle pivotal aspects like rent and payroll, symbolizing a widespread crisis. With physical branches and customer service access blocked, account holders like Adam Preen were left in a dilemma of how to communicate the pay delay to their employees — particularly distressing when the outage fell before a public holiday.
Concordantly, the bank’s failure to post updates on their website led to increased agitation among customers. Tracking site DownDetector reported an influx of about 8000 complaints starting from 11am relating to the ANZ service outage.
As this banking chaos was unfolding, customers at Woolworths stores across the ACT, Victoria, and NSW reported similar issues with their eftpos services. The grocery chain explained an IT glitch was hindering eftpos across some retailers but assured customers that cash transactions remained unaffected. Once the cause was identified, eftpos services slowly resumed normal operation.
Moving forward, a formal statement or comment from ANZ outlining the situation and the corrective steps being taken is eagerly awaited by many.
