SOME clients of Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) in Negros Occidental took to social media to express their dismay over the internal system glitch which affected the operations of the bank’s electronic channels, including automated teller machines (ATMs).
On Wednesday, June 7, the bank, in an advisory, announced an internal system error related to transaction mispostings. In order to speed up resolution, it had to close all its electronic channels.
About 10 p.m. of the same day, the BPI issued another advisory stating that it has rectified the mispostings, and that access to ATMs has also been restored.
The problem, however, persisted until Thursday, June 8, as some clients still were not able to make online transactions particularly through ATM.
Arvee Olvido of Barangay Mandalagan, Bacolod City, in his Facebook post, said they have to suffer from long queues in doing over-the-counter transactions.
Olvido said the bank is giving them false hope.
“We can no longer buy even fishball, it cannot be done using credit cards,” he added.
Stephanie Tarre said late Thursday afternoon: “ATM machines of BPI in Bacolod City are still offline. We are worried that our account has been deducted already.”
This was also the problem of some clients who trooped to BPI-Bacolod Main Branch on Araneta Street on Wednesday.
Their ATM cards cannot be recognized by the machine thus, they were not sure whether deductions were made without withdrawals.
Other clients were not able to do over-the-counter transactions because their accounts were opened in other branches, mostly outside the city.
“Lost my confidence, boycott BPI,” Ding Flores commented in a Facebook post.
Another user said: “What will happen to us now? I hope you can shed light about this matter. We have to pay our bills. How long are we going to endure this?”
Some, however, commented that they have already accessed their accounts and even made ATM transactions.
As of 6 p.m. on Thursday, the bank said it is exerting all efforts to rectify balances of accounts with misposted transactions.
In its advisory, BPI said it has isolated the cause of system error.
“We expect complete restoration of services very soon as we fully recognize your requirements ahead of the coming long weekend, including transactions via our electronic channels,” it said.
All branches of the bank were opened until 7:30 p.m. on Thursday to serve transactions like withdrawals, deposits and payments.
Other banking services such as credit cards, remittance, equities, brokerage, investments, and loans continue to be operational, it said.
“We continue to stand behind the integrity of our clients’ accounts, and apologize for any inconvenience that this incident may have caused,” the BPI added.