The day before Christmas turned into a nightmare for many Bendigo Bank customers as the bank’s mobile app and online banking services went offline. The outage, which the bank confirmed on Tuesday morning, left scores of frustrated users unable to access their accounts or make crucial payments at one of the busiest times of the year.
Customers took to social media to vent their anger over the untimely disruption. Comments quickly piled up on the bank’s Facebook post announcing the issue, with many claiming this was not an isolated incident but a recurring problem plaguing the regional bank’s digital services.
“This is happening more and more with the Bendigo Bank app. I’ve banked with Bendigo for around 30 years and I’m seriously considering changing banks because I’ve been caught without app access so many times now.”
– A frustrated longtime customer
Rural Customers Left in the Lurch
The outage hit Bendigo Bank’s rural customer base particularly hard, with many living in areas without physical bank branches. They were effectively cut off from their money on Christmas Eve.
“I am in a country town where they don’t have a [branch] so I am stuck. If I don’t do the [trek] to town soon there won’t be a Christmas lunch in this house.”
– A rural customer unable to access funds
Other customers reported troubles paying for essential purchases like fuel, as the outage extended to card payments for some. The timing could hardly have been worse as families traveled to holiday destinations or did frantic last-minute gift shopping.
Bank Scrambles to Restore Services
Bendigo Bank assured it was working urgently to resolve the problems and appreciated customers’ patience on the busy holiday. It noted that while its app and online banking were down, ATMs, branch services, cards and incoming payments were still operational.
However, this was little comfort to the many customers relying exclusively on digital channels, especially those in rural areas with no quick access to physical banking alternatives. For them, the outage made for a very unmerry start to the festive season.
A Wake-Up Call for Banks
This high-profile failure of a major bank’s digital services on a peak transaction day like Christmas Eve underscores the growing pains still facing the industry in the digital age. As more and more customers go online-only, banks’ IT systems are being tested like never before.
With digital now the primary face of banking, online outages have an outsized impact and are unacceptable in consumers’ eyes. One thing is clear: banks that fail to invest in robust, reliable online services risk seeing their customer base disappear.
As for Bendigo Bank, it will need to work hard to restore rural customers’ faith in its online and mobile offerings. A Christmas Eve outage is the digital equivalent of closing a town’s only branch with no warning. It has given the bank a lump of coal on what should be the most cheerful day of the year.
