Standard Bank says it is up and running again after its local network suffered widespread downtime throughout the month-end weekend and yesterday.
Since Saturday and up until yesterday evening, customers complained they were unable to carry out electronic funds transfers, draw money from ATMs, or use their credit and debit cards to make payments.
The bank's mobile payments platform, Instant Money, was also reported to be down.
One frustrated customer tweeted: "It's month end and people need to be paid!" while another took to online consumer platform Hellopeter.com: "On Saturday, I attempted to use my cheque card to pay for lunch. My card was declined so I went to the ATM but could not draw money. I was given 0457 code, so thought maybe there was just a general problem and I left the ATM. On Sunday the same problem [sic]."
Standard Bank apologised via its blog yesterday evening, saying its South African network had been experiencing "unexpected intermittent service disruptions" - particularly with ATMs and point-of-sale devices - yesterday and over the course of the weekend.
The bank - one of SA's largest financial institutions - said the disruptions did not impact all its customers and channels. "Due to the disruptions experienced, some customers were not able to conduct normal banking services."
Standard Bank said it ensured full services were restored by 3:30pm yesterday and that its network remained under observation. "Our dedicated IT team are monitoring the situation and we will provide regular updates should the situation change."
Standard Bank said this morning it was investigating the cause of the incident.
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