The Bank of Ireland apologised on Wednesday after resolving a technical issue that allowed customers to withdraw or transfer more money from their accounts than they held.
The problem caused queues outside cash machines around the country on Tuesday and into the night, as rumours spread that the machines allowed “free” money to be withdrawn, and police had to intervene.
Some articles in the Irish media reported that customers with no funds in their accounts were able to withdraw up to €1,000.
Bank of Ireland warned users of the ATMs or financial apps, reiterating that funds would be debited.
A technical malfunction with the Bank of Ireland's systems meant people were able to withdraw large amounts of money from cash machines, regardless of their bank balance. Watch more videos 👉 https://t.co/dE2SG7rBtP pic.twitter.com/eHydI4XEvq
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 16, 2023
“We sincerely apologise for the disruption caused by this outage. (…) We know that we have fallen short of the level of service our customers have come to expect from us,” the monetary institution continued.
Brendan Burgess, founder of the website AskAboutMoney.com, told TV channel RTE that the bank needs to improve its “clunky” IT system.
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He felt, however, that “if you know you have no money but you take €1,000 from a bank account (…) that’s fraud. And that’s not a problem that has anything to do with Bank of Ireland’s systems.”
The Irish central bank has already fined Bank of Ireland for flaws in its IT systems and said it was monitoring the implications of this incident.
