The ANZ bank has suffered a major lunchtime outage limiting ATM and EFTPOS services Australiawide, causing consumer headaches on the first retail trading day of the New Year.
Slap, bang in the middle of the first retail day of the New Year, when customers are stocking up on cash after the bank holiday break and workers need funds for a midday snack, the ANZ suffered a processor failure affecting 800 ANZ automated teller machines (ATMs).
As many as 20,000 EFTPOS terminals could also have been affected by the outage, as well as an unknown number of customers who tried to access other bank ATMs with an ANZ card.
"We were notified of the problem at midday," an ANZ spokesperson told ZDNet.
"There are a lot of people at lunchtime trying to access these services," she said. "But customers can use branches [instead] without incurring fees."
ANZ has two and a half million customers, however, "as to how many have been affected today is difficult to say," the spokesperson said.
The bank said it was relying on its computer vendor to supply a piece of equipment to "right the hardware failure" and hoped to have fully functional services between 2pm and 3pm.
However, at 3.30pm ANZ ATM services and EFTPOS terminals were still down.
"Some ATM and EFTPOS facilities might have enabled small transactions," the spokesperson said.
