ATM card users were unable to withdraw money under the cross-banking system on Monday afternoon due to IT technical errors, resulting in payday chaos.
Customers queue to withdraw money from an ATM machine. (Bangkok Post file photo)
Call centres of commercial banks were flooded with complaints from customers that they could not withdraw money by using the ATM machines of other banks, which normally can be done without a problem.
As Monday was the last day of the month, payday for many people, the number of ATM users increased two or three fold over average daily use.
Weidt Nuchcharoen, senior executive vice president of Krungthai Bank, said the investigation found the problem arose from a system error at National ITMX Co, which is the system provider for the intra-bank clearing system, causing the break down of the ATM pool.
He said the system went down around noon on Monday and resumed, but became unusable again about 4pm. When the system resumed, some ATM machines showed a message saying that the service was not available. All banks faced the same problem.
Some Krungthai Bank customers found that the withdrawal was debited from their account, but the machine did not pay out the cash. Mr Weidt said the bank will check with the banks that issued the cards and will refund the money by Thursday.
Bangkok Bank’s call centre advised customers not to withdraw money for a few days to prevent any recurrence of the problem.
Tuesday is a mid-year holiday for financial institutions and banks will use the free time to examine their databases to see how many customers did not get the money they withdrew.