On Monday 4 of December 2023, Westpac clients were unable to access their accounts leading to severe inconvenience. This went from around 9pm till 5am the following day. The bank said that this outage occurred after a ‘routine technology update’. This outage caused some Westpac clients to not be able to see their accounts, resulting in difficulty accessing their money. The ATM and card payment services however were working during the ordeal.
Around 9pm Monday, clients were left initially confused after accessing their online banking. They were unable to see their accounts as they were not there. It was only later when those who tried to login were met with the message “Westpac Online Banking is currently unavailable”. Some clients posted on social media about this. The bank announced on X (formally known as Twitter) that there was an outage at 8:19 pm AEDT on Monday. They said that their teams were working on resolving the issue “as a matter of urgency”, apologizing to customers for the inconvenience.
At 11:48pm AEDT, they said the outage was “following a routine technology update earlier this evening”.
Westpac announced at 5:17 am on X that the issue has been resolved.
As this was said to be caused by a “routine technology update” customers were not given a forewarning of a possibility of services being down due to maintenance, or an outage.
The sudden ordeal not only had affected Westpac’s service and customers, but also businesses too.
Those who had to use the banking service couldn’t access their funds for transferring and transactions.
One parent said they were stranded at a service station because she was unable to move money across her accounts to pay for fuel.
“Currently stranded on the side of the road with a screaming infant because we can’t get fuel without transferring money on the app that’s not working,” they exclaimed early Tuesday morning.
Affected people were unable to pay for their dinner at restaurants.
People had to abandon their shopping carts for similar reasons.
“Mind is blown – at the grocery store and no one could pay for their food,” Musician Matt Gresham told his Facebook followers.
A Western Australian business owner urged the company to: “Hurry up and fix it please”.
“I’ve got a business to run and payments to enter onto MYOB and I can’t without accessing my account,” she said.
There can be criticisms placed on Westpac. The bank didn’t inform customers of the outage directly, but instead used social media. Initial confusion and panic may have been alleviated quicker. This outage could raise questions about how reliable online banking can be. A sudden inability to access money is problematic given peoples experiences. Although this method may be the way in the future Westpac customers, as well as customers of other banks, would wonder if an event like this may happen again.
If something like this were to occur again other payment methods would still be essential, such as cash payments.
Westpac has apologized to their customers about the online and mobile banking glitch and admitted that it took too long to fix.
Article Links:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-04/westpac-outage-online-customers-banking-accounts/103188268
