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Johnny Green/PA Wire
# Day 7
UK staff drafted in to help clear Ulster Bank's payments backlog
Ulster Bank’s British parent RBS says it’s finished clearing its British backlog, and staff are now working ‘flat out’ for Ireland.
STAFF AT ULSTER BANK’S British parent bank are now working “flat out” to help clear the backlog of payments into Irish customers’ accounts, a bank spokeswoman has said.
The bank’s parent, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, this morning said it had almost cleared the backlog of payments into the accounts of customers of RBS and Natwest, its two British sister retail banks who had fallen foul of the same technical glitches.
“RBS and Natwest confirm that the update of customer account balances has cleared overnight, with the exception of a few specific sets of transactions,” the group said, describing the delay as “unacceptable”.
“The full focus of our efforts will now be on delivering the same result for our Ulster Bank customers who continue to experience unacceptable delays to their accounts being updated”.
A spokeswoman for the bank later added that staff in Britain were now working “flat out” in order to help clear the process, and said the “full focus of the RBS organisation” was to bring an end to the difficulties being experienced by customers.
It may still be the end of the week, however, before the payments backlog – caused by a glitch in the RBS Group’s IT facilities last week – can be cleared.
Ulster Bank said it would keep around 50 branches open until 7pm for the rest of the week in order to facilitate customers who may need access to funds in the meantime, but whose balances are being negatively affected by the backlog.
Difficulty access funds
ATM services remain operational, but the balances displayed may not reflect the true standing of a customer’s account given the delays in processing some payments in and out of customer accounts.
Customers who cannot access cash to which they should be entitled are advised to bring their account details and ID to any branch where they can be assisted.
Customers are also being allowed to withdraw cash using their credit cards, where cash advance charges will be waived for the period of the outage.
The two British banks are also offering extended opening hours for the rest of the week to facilitate customers with related difficulties, such as the removal of extra account charges that they would not have incurred otherwise.
Read: Central Bank ‘pressing Ulster Bank to resolve situation’
More: Ulster Bank should waive fees, says ISME
