The day after posting a record $9.14 billion of profits and boasting about its technological prowess, Commonwealth Bank of Australia has had to apologise to customers over a system error that saw debit, credit and mobile payments double-charged over a six-day period.
The Australian bank's social media channels have been clogged with angry customers complaining that their accounts had been drained and charges levied for unauthorised overdrafts.
The foul-up comes as the bank reported a $1.2 billion spend on initiatives including risk and compliance projects, technology and productivity. In the full year statement, CBA group CEO Ian Narev said: "Our focus remains on the use of technology to improve all our channels, and to underpin continuous process improvement, to simplify our customers’ experience with us."
The very next day, customers awoke to find the following message from the bank: "You may see affected transactions from 7 August. The affected transactions may appear on your Credit Card or Debit Card account. If you used Tap & Pay or PayTag to make the transaction, you may see the duplicated transactions on other types of accounts."
The bank's IT team have been working overnight to refund customers accounts, with a follow-up post to customers arriving Thursday morning: "We have now refunded all duplicate debit and credit card transactions, except for customers who had their cards blocked or reissued over the past 5 days (we expect those refunds to be received by customers by 6pm Friday 14 August). We apologise for the inconvenience to our customers. The refund of any Commonwealth Bank fees or charges is now being addressed as a priority."
CBA is not the only Austrlaian bank to find itself battling technology gremlins, with Bank of Queensland working to process a backlog of payments after an overnight system failure left customers empty-handed on pension day.