At 17h00 on 20 March 2012, a severe voltage and current spike (over 11500v and 300A) was experienced by the FNB processing centre. The spike was of such a severe nature that the bank’s uninterrupted power supplies were impacted briefly. This caused systems to shut down as further protective measures were implemented.
FNB systems were fully restored during the early afternoon of 22 March.
However, limited downtime, on 20 March and during the morning of 22 March 2012, may have resulted in additional bank charges to customers.
FNB have stated that they will automatically reimburse additional bank charges incurred where customers were forced to use other bank’s ATM’s due to their ATMs not being available.
Customers may also approach their branches, Call Centres’, or their relationship banker if they believe they have other claims as a result of the outages experienced.
Reimbursements will be considered for the period between, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 to the close of business Thursday, 22 March 2012.
Background to the outage:
After the severe voltage and current spike, the bank’s independent power generating capacity was used to restore systems. The bank’s IT teams then ensured that all systems were stable and functioning correctly before opening the systems to new transactions.
FNB customers were then able to transact via cards and most ATM’s from 18h00 onwards on FNB’s back-up system until the main Banking systems were restored during the early evening with functionality returned from 21h30 onwards.
All systems were again checked during the night were confirmed to be operating correctly on 21 March.
Batch runs of data (such as debit orders and transfers) were completed normally during the evening and early morning in accordance with inter-bank arrangements.
