Westpac, St George banks hit by outage
Written by admin on October 14, 2024
Millions of Australians are unable to access their money online or through app banking after a major outage hit four banks.
Westpac said in a statement shared to X about 1.40pm on Monday it was “aware that customers are experiencing issues accessing online and mobile banking.”
“Our teams are working to fix the issue.”
St George, Bank of Melbourne and Bank SA shared identical statements to their own X accounts about the same time.
Aussies affected by the outage shared their fury online, with Matt Barton reporting he was in the middle of buying Oasis tickets when the app threw his plans into disarray.
“Stopped me from getting Oasis tickets! Had the tickets reserved – went to my westpac app to get my credit card details … Something’s not working … Something’s not working … Not happy,” he wrote.
A representative for the Home Affairs Minister declined to comment on whether the government had any indication the outages were caused by an attack, and directed questions to the banks. The Communication Minister’s office has been approached for comment.
Online, one frustrated customer said she was in the middle of a spa treatment and had been left wondering how she would be able to pay. Another commenter noted the unfortunate timing of the outage, with many likely out buying lunch.
Website Down Detector – which tracks reported issues on various platforms – says more than 6000 outages have reported by Westpac customers.
The outage comes just days after Westpac scrapped its cardless cash withdrawal service, citing declining cash use as the reason.
“Over a 12-month period, we’ve seen a 21 per cent increase in mobile wallet transactions as more customers choose the speed, security and convenience of digital banking,” a spokesperson said last week.
“At the same time, there has been a decline in cardless cash withdrawals.”
The service came to an end at 8pm AEST on Friday.
More to come.
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