If It Prints, I'll Let You Know

If you thought having an ATM account will give you 24/7 banking convenience, think again.

In Australia, a freak computer glitch in the country’s biggest bank left many without access to their money. According to the National Australia Bank, the inconvenience was caused by a file that was corrupted that wiped out many bank transactions. The most important of these transactions involved salary payments and transfers.

The National Australia Bank has extended their apologies to all those who were affected and promised their clients that they will resolve the problem as soon as possible. In response to angered consumers, the bank opened some branches on Saturday and Sunday and brought more staff to handle phone calls and to serve the people who went to their branches.

A bank representative told media that a rogue file affected transactions made on Wednesday, which was then fixed on Thursday that prevented Friday’s business to continue. They could not tell how many ATMs crashed when their electronic system failed to work properly. The issue was easily picked up on Twitter with many reporting that their bank accounts were a mess as amounts appeared and disappeared causing a halt in withdrawal transactions.

Of the 11.5 million customers that they have, the bank could not tell how many were affected but they were sure that HSBC transactions were somehow affected as they do the payment clearings for the said bank in Australia. They did confirm that they have arranged and organized most of the delayed transactions but could not say when systems will be back to normal.

The bank bug could not have come at a better time when a growing discontent for Australia’s top banks was on the rise due to increasing interest rates and fees. Only last week, 250 investors filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the National Bank after claiming that the bank failed to properly disclose being exposed to US debt during the financial crisis.