Glitch leaves Australians without cash

[Joanne98]

Source: Business World

SYDNEY -- A freak computer glitch at Australia’s biggest bank froze cash machines and left millions of people struggling to access their money on Saturday.

National Australia Bank (NAB) said a corrupted file wiped out a huge number of transactions, including salary payments and transfers, and crashed some ATMs, angering many customers who were facing a weekend without money.

Spokeswoman Meaghan Telford said NAB was opening branches on Saturday and Sunday and bringing in extra call-center staff as technicians scrambled to fix the problem.

“We’re very apologetic,” she told AFP. “We recognize this has caused people a lot of inconvenience. We’re just working to resolve the problem.”




Read more: http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=21965

[Atman]

1. Practice.

Now they know it works.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I do not understand the total reliance on electronic banking.

Do people not get that it takes only one "glitch" to freeze up everything?

We had a county wide computer "glitch" a few weeks ago, on a Friday, ( Payday) all day.

NO bank ATMs or teller cages worked, because it was all puter related.

Grocery store card readers did not work, people were walking out of the stores in droves.

Around here, many of us pay our bills at the utility companies, but they need puters to print out receipts and credit the account...ooops.

Cash worked at some stores. I went shopping, hardly any crowds.

Emergency cash on hand and keeping the car tank at least 1/2 full is pretty important around here, in hurricane country. Actually, I fill the tank when it GETS to 1/2.

[Dappleganger]

4. Right, it's amazing how much we rely upon electricity.

We're in hurricane country too and always have those kinds of supplies on hand. One week w/out access will cure you pretty quickly.

[NBachers]

2. Right- there's the story they desperately try to make you believe, then there's what really happened

[Delphinus]

10. You have

an inside scoop on what really happened?

[lonestarnot]

5. Sounds like money management to me. How to manage one out of it for a period.

[DallasNE]

6. How Is This Even Possible

Surely they have backup files to restore from plus a backup of all of their transaction files. That is standard procedure. Yes, they would have down time while recovery takes place and the inconvience from that but nothing should ever be lost. Not in this day and age.

[BlueJazz]

7. I was thinking the same thing. There's something else going on there,....

...not that it's evil or anything but (working for a Bank in the IT area)...we can get the system up in 20 minutes if the drives all crash.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Makes me wonder how many "overdraft fees" will be sent out

in the next few weeks.
Or if any "questionable" bank records will have "disappeared".

god, 8 years of Bush and I have learned to think this way.
and now without reason, even now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. It may be a matter of coordinating recovery at many centres

if the system is a complicated network, they may have to wait for all data-holding centres to complete their recovery before they can say "it's all validated and consistent, we can go ahead with new transactions".

[sarcasmo]

11. If the big banks held money let's say for a 72 hour three day weekend period.

Wouldn't allow people to withdraw cash or access their money, how much in interest would Chase and Bank of America rake in?