A “technical issue” with a number of services offered by the Bank of Ireland (BOI), including the lender’s mobile app and online banking platform, enabled users to withdraw up to €1000 from their accounts, even without having such an amount in their accounts. The development led to a surge in crowds at Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in the country yesterday (Tuesday).

A Windfall for the Quick?

On Tuesday, customers of the commercial bank, which is the largest banking institution in the country, complained on social media that they could not make financial transactions with their bank accounts and cards. However, the glitch in the bank’s system also allowed customers to withdraw beyond their account balance and transfer the fund to linked digital bank accounts such as Revolut’s.

Bank of Ireland Rectifies Error

However, BOI announced earlier today (Wednesday) that it had fixed the glitch and the mobile app and online banking services were back up. The lender pointed out that service delivery might still be slower than regular as the bank was making efforts to clear its backlog of payment orders.

“Overnight payments to accounts may appear throughout the day. We sincerely apologize for the disruption this outage caused - we know it fell far below the standards our customers expect from us,” BOI wrote in a post on the social media platform, X (formerly known as Twitter)

In an earlier tweet on Tuesday, the Irish bank cautioned its customers that any funds withdrawn beyond the current account balance will be deducted from their accounts.

Reacting to the development, Michael McGrath, Ireland’s Finance Minister, instructed the country’s apex monetary authority to provide a comprehensive report on the incident and to determine if additional measures are needed to prevent similar disruptions among other institutions in the country's banking industry. Responding, the Irish central bank said it was closely observing the situation and collaborating with BOI to address any identified problems for customers, according to a Reuters report.

Meanwhile, Finance Magnates conducted a check and found that the Bank Ireland Group ADR, which represents shares of the Bank of Ireland Group PLC, rose marginally by 0.39% in the last 24 hours.

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