Bank’s customers affected by system upgrade

Scores of confused and angry CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank customers turned up at several branches across the island, demanding answers after finding that hundreds and even thousands of dollars were missing from their accounts.
Over the weekend, some of them were unable to withdraw money from ATMs while others complained of not being able to access their accounts at all, as a temporary hold was placed on funds following a system upgrade.
One woman told Barbados TODAY in the afternoon when she turned up at the Warrens branch she was told she might have to wait 30 to 90 days to get back more than $900, since the bank would have to carry out investigations.
However, she later reported that her money was “back on” her account.
In an emailed statement to Barbados TODAY, director of corporate communications at the bank Debra King explained that a system upgrade carried out last weekend had “resulted in some intermittent issues on our network”.
She said while the majority of payment transactions during the period were successful, “due to network timeouts in very specific circumstances, customers may have been debited for an incomplete transaction. We have put procedures in place to resolve these issues. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and thank our customers for their patience and understanding.”
Some customers also received a text message this afternoon which stated that “CIBC FirstCaribbean had issues with some of our systems over the weekend. However, operations are now back to normal; we apologize for any inconvenience caused.”
In the first quarter of this year some customers experienced a similar problem with the bank.