News reports out of Australia this morning are saying that Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) suffered an overnight file processing glitch reminiscent of the overnight file processing glitch that caused havoc a few weeks ago at the National Australia Bank and which continues to irritate many NAB customers.
According to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald, approximately 5% of the bank's 11 million business and retail customers were affected by the problem. Some CBA customers found that they could not access ATMs, or found that their accounts registered a "zero balance." On-line banking for some business customers was also unavailable.
All the problems were fixed by noon Sydney time, the bank said.
CBA apologized for the problem and said that customers who may have incurred charges because of the glitch to contact the bank for reimbursement, reported The Australian.
In August, a security upgrade at CBA caused a day of banking chaos for its customers for which the bank also had to apologize for.
Robert N. Charette is a Contributing Editor to IEEE Spectrum and an acknowledged international authority on information technology and systems risk management. A self-described “risk ecologist,” he is interested in the intersections of business, political, technological, and societal risks. Charette is an award-winning author of multiple books and numerous articles on the subjects of risk management, project and program management, innovation, and entrepreneurship. A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, Charette was a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society’s Golden Core Award in 2008.
