Danske Bank retail service crippled by ATM glitch

Bank technical fault prevents consumers withdrawing cash from ATMs

COPENHAGEN – Customers were unable to withdraw cash on Wednesday from ATMs if they banked with Finnish Sampo Bank, Northern Ireland’s Northern Bank or National Irish Bank in the Republic of Ireland. All three are subsidiaries of Danske Bank, which said its IBM-supported cash machines had suffered a glitch locking out customers from withdrawing funds.

Danske said the fault lay in a problem between technology firm IBM and the Danish national payments network PBS, also causing some of Danske’s own customers to experience problems with Maestro debit cards in Denmark.

Northern Bank’s entire network of 200 cash machines crashed at about 11am on Wednesday, the bank managing to get them back online by 6am yesterday morning. Sampo customers were unable to make ATM withdrawals, while the payment verification system failed for Visa and Mastercard payments.

Sampo has said it will compensate customers affected by the glitch.