standard bank users refunded after atm crash
29 January 2007

Standard Bank is to refund customers who had to use other banks' ATMs on Friday afternoon, when services were disrupted at a substantial portion of its own ATM network as a result of a hardware problem. Customers who used their Standard Bank card at another ATM will be refunded the full Saswitch service fee of 6.50 rand, the bank said in a statement.

Peter Schlebusch, Standard Bank's deputy chief executive personal and business banking SA, said the bank apologises to all customers who had their banking services disrupted on Friday.

"Notwithstanding the events of Friday, we pride ourselves in providing a world class banking service and facilities to our customers. We are aware that many of our customers opted to use an alternate ATM as a result of the disruptions to our network.

"We recognise the inconvenience that this has caused. As a result of this, Standard Bank will be refunding the Saswitch transaction fee to all of its customers who used alternate ATM terminals to transact on Friday."   The cost of the transaction will be automatically credited back to the customers account at the end of the month. Customers need not contact their branch or the Customer Contact Centre as payment will be made automatically, the statement said.

Around 4pm on Friday, hardware problems caused country-wide disruptions to a substantial portion Standard Bank's ATM network and debit card transactions.

Standard Bank technicians restored services to most of the bank's ATMs and debit card facilities by late afternoon on Friday and monitored the situation throughout the night. Full service to Standard Bank's ATM network has been restored.

I-Net Bridge, www.business.iafrica.com