Ulster Bank fails to meet new deadline

ULSTER BANK says it does not expect full services to resume today, despite earlier pledges that a backlog of payments would be cleared by the beginning of this week.

In a statement, the bank said it was continuing to work through thousands of transactions affected by IT issues.

However, due to the “complexity and scale” of the backlog, it was unlikely to be fully up to date later today.

“We know this disruption is unacceptable and we continue to do all we can to help our customers,” the bank said.

“The staff in our branches and call centres are doing everything possible to help customers.”

The bank said about 50 of its branches will have extended opening hours – from 9.30am to 7pm – until Friday of this week.

Queues of people were visible over the weekend at some of the branches that were kept open on Saturday and Sunday.

In an information note for customers, Ulster Bank has sought to address concerns among those who are worried they may be disconnected from a utility or service provider if their account is not paid.

“We would like to reassure our customers and those of other banks that in most cases there will not be any impact,” the bank said.

It added some social welfare and children’s allowance payments continued to be affected by delays.

The bank said it would continue to provide welfare recipients with access to funds if they visited any branch with photographic ID and their account number.

The bulk of salary payments are now up-to-date; however, a small number of customers may still experience a delay, the bank added. It said any customer can access money via its ATM and branch network.

On the issue of credit ratings, it said it was working with the credit reference agencies to ensure customers’ credit ratings were not affected as a result of the payment backlog.