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Big four bank Westpac has said its mobile and online banking services have now returned to normal following an eight-hour outage earlier in the week.
The outage began on Monday night (9:19pm, 4 December) and continued into the next morning (5:17am, 5 December).
“We’re aware that customers are currently experiencing issues accessing account information in online and mobile banking,” Westpac wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“Our teams are working to fix the issue. We apologise for any inconvenience and will continue to share updates here.”
The bank continued to post updates to social media throughout the outage, saying its teams were working to return operations to normal.
Update: 11:48pm AEDT: Our mobile and online banking services remain unavailable following a routine technology update earlier this evening.
— Westpac Bank (@Westpac) December 4, 2023
We're still working to restore services for our customers and apologise for this experience. https://t.co/ZIxXW8Lt74
Westpac said the outage came as a result of problems with a “routine technology update” but provided no further details as to what the issues were.
It also confirmed that the outage was not the result of a cyber attack, reiterating that its systems and data remain secure and safe.
“Rest assured, we have not been hacked; however, we did experience an outage overnight impacting mobile and online banking,” it told a customer asking about the nature of the outage.
“Our support teams were engaged, and our mobile and banking services are now restored and running as usual.”
It also added that during the outage, customers were likely unable to log in or view their accounts in the app or with online banking.
“We’re sorry for the disruption and the time it took to fix it,” the bank added.
That being said, customers were not super willing to accept Westpac’s apology.
“Not good enough, you should block access to the accounts while this happens I just lost everything because I can’t stop a company taking my food money and surgery money,” said one angry customer on X.
“I want compensation for being unable to access my funds,” added another.
The bank has responded to complaints, requesting those frustrated by the outage to send them a direct message.
The Westpac outage comes only weeks after major telco Optus suffered a similar incident.
While Optus said its outage was also not a result of a cyber attack, the company faced a major fallout, with its chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin resigning in the aftermath.
The scrutiny against Optus for its outage comes as a result of both the company’s lack of compensation for organisations and individuals who lost business as a result, combined with the bad taste left in the mouth of many Australians after it suffered one of the largest cyber attacks the nation has ever seen just over a year ago.
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