Joanna Partridge 

Bank of Ireland glitch let customers withdraw money they didn’t have

‘Technical issue’ allowed transfers and withdrawals beyond customer limits and made online banking unavailable
  
  

Bank of Ireland branch.
The bank told customers that any money withdrawn or transferred would still be debited from their accounts. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Bank of Ireland has apologised for an IT glitch that meant some customers were able to withdraw money they did not have in their accounts at cashpoints.

The bank said it had resolved the “technical issue”, which had also allowed transfers beyond customer limits and had made its online banking and mobile app services unavailable.

“Our teams restored these services overnight and all services are available to customers this morning,” the lender said in a statement on Wednesday.

However, Bank of Ireland told customers that any money withdrawn from their accounts at cashpoints or transferred during the IT glitch would still be debited from their accounts.

“Overnight payments to accounts may appear throughout the day. We are aware that the technical issue meant some customers were able to withdraw or transfer funds above their normal limits,” the bank added.

It came after reports of some people being able to withdraw large sums of money, in some cases beyond the funds they expected to be available in their account.

Photos and videos posted on social media overnight appeared to show queues outside cashpoints across Ireland on Tuesday evening.

Ireland’s police force, Garda Síochána, said late on Tuesday it was aware of an “unusual volume of activity” at some ATMs across the country.

Bank of Ireland said on Wednesday: “We urge any customer who may find themselves in financial difficulty due to overdrawing on their account to contact us.”

Financial technology firm Revolut said earlier it was “looking into” reports that large amounts of money had been transferred into some customers’ accounts from Bank of Ireland.

During the Bank of Ireland outage, some customers had posted on social media that they were able to transfer money into their Revolut digital banking app, before withdrawing it from a cashpoint.

 

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