Customers of ICICI Bank had a trying time as the bank's nationwide network developed technical glitch on Saturday morning.
Though the bank's branches functioned normally in the morning, the branches went offline due to the network problems around 10 a.m. Some of the bank's ATM centres, which were working till noon, went offline after 1 p.m. in Hyderabad, leaving many customers stranded on the first day of the month.
The operations were restored by 3.30 p.m, a senior official of the bank informed The Hindu . There was some technical problem with ‘Finacle’, the platform on which the ICICI Bank online operations are carried out.
“First day of month is also a bill clearance time for most of us. But this network outage left us in a difficult position,” C. Suresh, an employee said.
Banking is primarily based on trust, irritants like this only create problems, he observed adding that he will have to pay interest rates on his credit card bill as Saturday was the last day to pay that bill.
Scores of customers like Mr. Suresh streamed into the branches across the city only to return with disappointment. The bank staff, on the other hand, had a tough time placating the irate customers.
“We can understand the difficulty customers are facing but cannot help it as the network failure is a pan-India affair. We were forced to send our customers back,” a visibly troubled branch manager said. ICICI bank staff were also clueless as to if the online services were functioning normally. 'Our team is working to resolve the problem and network will be restored soon' was their stock reply.
Business people are the worst-hit as a result of the network outage Manish Kumar, a businessman said.
“Most of us operate recurring deposit accounts through which we constantly deposit and withdraw money. The outage will affect our business today,” he said.
The only silver lining for the ICICI customers was that the network breakdown happened on Saturday when stock markets remain closed, he observed.
“On a weekday we would have lost a lot of money and ICICI's reputation would have taken a hard hit,” he maintained.
