Bank upgrade affecting customers

File photo.

A system upgrade at First Credit Union has affected thousands of customers across the Bay of Plenty and Waikato.

The bank announced to its customers last Friday that they would be upgrading their core banking system on the weekend of the September 9-10.

The upgrade included a new mobile banking app as well as upgrades to their internet and phone banking and new debit cards.

Customers who had used their card up until May this year, were issued a new BLUE debit card and pin to be used effective immediately.

The upgrade has caused a myriad of issues and throughout it the bank has been sharing live updates on their Facebook page which have attracted over 500 comments from disgruntled customers.

'My new card works but I go to an ATM to withdraw money and it tells me my daily limit for card has been exceeded? Please sort it out I cannot get to a branch and all your contact numbers are disconnected,” wrote one member.

'Finally got my internet banking working with a call back last night. Blue card working. Feedback would be to consult members before major changes are made (the old way worked fine),” posted another.

Huhana Anderson, a customer of First Credit Union in Whakatane, says she is yet to receive her new card and has been ringing her local branch to find a solution, without luck.

'I've tried the last few days since Monday and it just rings.

'Some people can't access their account through internet banking, some can't get through phone banking or even getting through to the normal branch number.

'They had sent out new debit cards that were meant to instantly work, but they either don't or you have to go into the branch and activate it.

'I get paid on Friday night, I don't know how they're expecting I get money out.”

A caller to the SunLive newsroom, who did not wish to be named says he is frustrated at the upgrade.

'All of the phone lines are engaged and you can't get a hold of the bank.

'You can go to the bank where they can fix your issue on the spot, but as soon as you go to leave it's stuffed up again.

'I can imagine there's a lot of people in worse situations than I am right now, people with children or stuck in another town with no gas or money.”

First Credit Union CEO, Terry Barlow says the bank is working hard to resolve the issues associated with the upgrade.

'What's happened is we've changed our cards over, we went from an old card provider to a new one.”

'What it's meant is that we have had lots of people coming into our branch to say hello.”

He says 24, 500 cards were issued over the previous month.

'We sent out the cards and they were activated and a PIN mailer was sent out separately.

'That process, like any other communication process with 24, 500 people, has been effective for most of the people but there has been some people inconvenienced.

'Some people have said the card didn't come or the pin didn't come in the post so that's mainly what we've been dealing with.

'We don't quite know why that was, I suggest it is some issue with the post box or the mail and there may be some instances where our system was out of date such as people have changed address and not told us.”

'90 per cent of our members are in the Waikato or the Bay of Plenty and we've got branches spread through that area from Taupo to Mount Maunganui, Hamilton and Ngaruawahia, so there aren't many customers who are affected that don't live near a branch.”

He says customers are also experiencing difficulties in using their cards at Countdown Supermarkets.

'For some reason the cards, if you use the chip won't work at Countdown.

'It will work on tap and go but it won't work if you insert the card and it won't give you cash.

'The reason for that is that Countdown is big enough to operate their own card switch, we work with Westpac and they have advised Countdown that they haven't updated that switch. We're trying to get Westpac to get that fixed.”

'There has also been a slight issue with some ATMs where the fast cash option doesn't work, that's been really confusing for some people and we're hoping to get that fixed today.

'We also changed the way we log in to internet banking we moved it from using an access number to a using member number to log in and we advised people, we sent out lots of messaging but lots of people didn't actually pick up on that.”

'We're dealing with these membership issues on a one by one basis.

'I know that our call center is getting swamped they are just getting so many calls that we can't answer them all and I know that our branches are getting swamped as well.

He says while people are frustrated, members have been easy to work with.

'On the whole the members have been fantastic and my staff have been lovely.

'Obviously people are impatient and they're wondering why I made the change but generally we're getting through things and the card does work the internet banking does work it's just some internet banking issues.”

'We're working through very slowly and steadily to get things fixed.”

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2 comments

MAIL

Posted on 15-09-2017 14:18 | By jeancraven@kinect.co.nz

Snail mail takes forever so can understand people not receiving their cards or pin numbers. I posted a cheque in Tauranga to pay a Tauranga company and it took over three weeks. Had cancelled the cheque as I presumed it had been lost in the post and had to start all over again! Avoid using snail mail as much as possible.


No excuses.

Posted on 15-09-2017 20:28 | By morepork

To switch a critical IT system WITHOUT parallel running it, to require changed login procedures, to make changes to the way customers do things, and do it all at once, all smacks of incompetent IT. Any one of these things requires careful design and testing before it is ever allowed to go live. To do a whole bunch of changes as a "Big Bang" switch is just asking for trouble. The old system worked. Why not keep running it in parallel with the new system, so people can get used to new procedures but "fall back" to the old system if they have to? I have done a lot of this stuff for Banks like CitiCorp, Lloyds, Deutsche Bank, Banco Hispano Americano, as examples, and NOBODY would do it like this. The technology allows for a parallel solution, and that is the way MOST Banks would implement it.


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