Westpac datacentre crashes ATMs, online

Westpac is this morning scrambling to restore services after a datacentre glitch took down its ATM, EFTPOS, website and online banking facilities this morning.

Westpac ATM tells users it's "closed" (Credit: Kamilah Hopewell/ZDNet Australia)

Westpac has blamed the outage on an air-conditioning problem in Westpac's datacentre, according to Westpac spokesperson Jane Counsel.

"I can confirm and assure customers that this is something we're working on as an absolute priority," Counsel told ABC Radio this morning.

Counsel said that St George services had also been affected, but added that she wasn't aware of the full impact.

Hundreds of angry customers took to the social-networking service to protest.

"Yesterday #Westpac [announced] a $3.17bn profit. Today I can't even get $30 out of tier ATMs," said one user.

"If I cannot get my pay this week #Westpac will be on the wrong end of a #ClassActionSuit. Sorry for the inconvenience," remarked another, re-enforcing analyst views that customers will start voting with their feet when it comes to technology glitches.

The bank's outage has also affected CityRail payment services in NSW, with customers forced to pay with cash due to the crash.

Westpac's telephone banking is still operational.

Josh Taylor also contributed to this article.