2016 glitch at Bankwest too

Bankwest confirmed today that it was affected by a glitch similar to that of the Bank of Queensland's which saw merchants' EFTPOS terminals go down under a Y2K-like bug.

The Bank of Queensland's merchant terminals skipped ahead six years when the clock hit 1 January 2010, recording payments as occurring in January 2016. Cards were read as being out of date, which meant that transactions were denied. The nationwide issue was remedied via a workaround, although no permanent solution had been found.

"We've got a similar issue, it would appear," a spokesperson for Bankwest told ZDNet.com.au.

He said that the number of merchants affected were small, but that the bank was sorry that it had inconvenienced any of its customers.

First Data, which provided the service for the bank, had developed a workaround to aid merchants, delivered via support over the phone, according to the spokesperson. "I understand it's just a phone call all merchants make," the spokesperson said. "The workaround is straightforward."

A spokesperson for First Data had not returned requests for comment at the time of publication.

Bank of Queensland had also outsourced the merchant payment facilities. It signed a six-year agreement with transaction systems provider Keycorp to provide service.

ZDNet.com.au rang other banks to discover if they had encountered the issue. At the time of writing, only Westpac as well as merged Bendigo and Adelaide Bank have replied. The banks had not seen any problems. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group said it has also experienced no problems.