Concern over Ulster Bank deadline

THERE WAS concern last night that the latest deadline given by Ulster Bank to resolve issues with customer accounts would again be missed.

Last week Ulster Bank chief executive Jim Brown told the Oireachtas Finance Committee the bank was set to meet its target of having “the vast majority” of accounts in order by July 16th.

However that assurance appeared to be less strongly put on the bank’s website yesterday. While the bank said the majority “of our systems are now showing account balances as of today”, it continued, “some items such as cheques, manual lodgements and some payments have yet to be processed and therefore will not be reflected in account balances”.

The statement on the website concluded the bank expected services “should begin to return to normal” from today, Monday July 16th.

Attempts to secure clarification from the bank’s media department were not successful last night. A spokeswoman did promise to return a call but this had not materialised at the time of writing.

There was some anecdotal evidence yesterday that significant problems including standing order payments to credit cards and mortgage payments remained to be solved.

Mr Brown is expected to make an announcement early this week in relation to compensation for customers whose accounts have been affected and who are concerned about their credit ratings at the Irish Credit Bureau being damaged.

When asked about compensation at the Oireachtas Committee, Mr Brown said a team was looking at what could be done for customers “over and above the costs incurred”.

“I would expect to be able to make an announcement early next week,” he said. Mr Brown has described the problem of resolving the technology issues as “complex, time- consuming and frustratingly slow”.

However chairman of the Oireachtas Finance Committee Alex White (Lab) has said there were reports that the Edinburgh-based IT team responsible for the software that failed had been halved in size recently. He said the reports suggested there were widespread redundancies imposed.

The manner in which Ulster Bank was handling the technical failure, which has left tens of thousands of customers without access to funds for weeks, has been described by the Central Bank as “appalling”.

Central Bank director of consumer protection Bernard Sheridan castigated Ulster Bank and its parent Royal Bank of Scotland for contingency planning which “has self-evidently been appalling”.

Mr Sheridan also criticised the bank’s approach to customer communication as “exasperating” and said the Central Bank would be requiring Ulster Bank “to put in place a comprehensive restitution plan for impacted customers”.

He said the bank would insist Ulster Bank compensated its customers and customers of other institutions affected by the crisis for costs and charges incurred.