Westpac pushes IT fix onto customers
Westpac endured two days of system problems on Thursday and Friday, attracting the wrath of customers, who took to social media to express their ire about not being able to access accounts in the lead up to the weekend.
Although Westpac finally announced its system was fully operational late on Friday, users were forced to delete existing banking applications on their mobile or tablet devices and then re-install a new version.
The bank also took to Twitter and Facebook, to advise customers that if they were still having trouble accessing the online site from their PCs they needed to "double clear browser cache (Ctrl F5), shut your browser, shut down and restart your machine/device, navigate to login, not use bookmarks."
The issue first arose on Thursday and lasted for several hours, although the bank thought it had online and mobile banking working again by Thursday evening.
However, the problem resurfaced on Friday, with some customers claiming on Twitter that they could not access Westpac ATMs either. However, in a statement, Westpac said its ATM network was working.
According to a bank spokeswoman, Westpac was suffering "intermittent" problems on Friday, with only some customers being able to access online and mobile services, while others reported that the system was very slow, even if they could get online.
In another statement, the bank apologised for the problem and directed customers to branches or to its call centre. Westpac also promised that "customers will not incur any additional fees as result of this delay."
The outage is particularly galling for Westpac, which has managed to substantially reduce the number of severe computer problems it suffers each month by overhauling its technology infrastructure and working closely with major technology partner IBM.
The bank is also coming to the end of its A$2 billion Strategic Investment Priorities technology overhaul. In late May, chief information officer Clive Whincup said that the bank was on the "home stretch", with just two SIPs to complete.
However, one of those programs is the bank's online transformation project, led by Dhiren Kulkarni, which last week appeared to face a major stumbling block on that same home stretch.
Westpac has not given any indication as to the root of the problem as yet. The bank's spokeswoman said that it would be concentrating on restoring services before conducting an inquest.