Equity Bank. A systems glitch dealt a major blow to the bank operations at the weekend, leaving thousands of customers stranded. Photo/FILE
A systems glitch dealt a major blow to the operations of Equity Bank at the weekend, leaving thousands of customers stranded.
A spot check established that customers were until Tuesday morning experiencing difficulties in both across-the-counter and automated teller machine (ATM) transactions.
In Mombasa, people seeking to withdraw huge sums of money reported hitches throughout the weekend. The branches in Mombasa Island, Digo Road and Moi Avenue were only accepting deposits but not withdrawals.
“One is required to deposit the cash or cheque by filling two deposit slips. One is left with the bank to update the data when normal situation resumes,” a bank employee at Moi Avenue who cannot be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media, said.
Wanjohi Muturi, a car dealer in Mombasa claimed he was unable to transact a deal involving the purchase of a car because of the breakdown.
ATM withdrawals at the bank are capped at Sh20,000 per day.
In Nakuru, Boniface Omondi, who deals in school uniforms and food items said his clients in Kisumu were impatient since the problem had “rendered me immobile, which is why I want to ask the Bank how soon they can solve the situation.”
Mr Evans Mwangi, an employee of the Teacher’s Service Commission (TSC) in Nairobi, said he could not report to work because the network problem which had “constrained my finances.” He added: “I was here yesterday and today but so far we have not been helped in terms of withdrawing cash.”
Enquiries established services had been restored in some branches within Nairobi by mid-day Tuesday.
Sources within the bank said the problem was first reported at the weekend during an upgrade exercise.
“There was an exercise at the weekend to upgrade the current system to a bigger capacity. Unfortunately, not all went smoothly and we had a glitch leading to the breakdown in service delivery,” an official with the bank said. It is not clear if the bank issued any warning of possible disruptions to its network as it carried out an upgrade.
Normal services
In a statement Tuesday evening the bank confirmed the glitch but said normal services had resumed.
“We apologise for service interruptions as we upgrade our IT (information technology) system over the weekend,” the bank said in SMS to its customers. “It (the system upgrade) took longer than planned. Normal services have now resumed.”
Equity Bank runs 5.5 million accounts and aims to double the number by 2012.
The bank also recently got a major boost in terms of the size of clientele thanks to a deal signed with Safaricom on its mobile money transfer service. In the pact, Safaricom mobile money transfer service subscribers can withdraw cash from the bank’s ATMs. The M-Pesa ATM withdrawal service targets over 8.5 million Safaricom’s M-Pesa customers.
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