Customers angry after National Australia Bank hit by technology outage

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - National Australia Bank on Saturday suffered what it described as a “nationwide outage” to some of its technology systems, leaving customers unable to access banking services or withdraw money.

FILE PHOTO: A National Australia Bank (NAB) logo is pictured on an automated teller machine (ATM) in central Sydney September 12, 2014. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo

Customers took to social media to vent their frustrations, with some saying they were left unable to pay for groceries or refuel their cars.

“Loyal member for 15 years and you leave me standing at the supermarket altar with a trolley full of shopping,” said one Twitter user.

The bank tweeted just after midday (0200 GMT) on Saturday that some services were coming back online.

“We’re sorry and it’s not good enough ... but we’ll get it fixed as soon as possible,” Chief Customer Officer Business and Private Banking Anthony Healy said in a video posted on Twitter.

NAB is one of Australia’s four largest retail banks with a customer base of 9 million, according to its website.

The outage follows growing customer discontent with the so-called “Big Four” banks, which have suffered numerous embarrassing disclosures at an inquiry into financial sector misconduct.

A spokesman from the bank told Reuters by telephone that it was a national outage, without elaborating on its cause.

The Bank of New Zealand [BNZL.UL], a NAB subsidiary, also experienced outages on Saturday across New Zealand, but the spokesman was unable to confirm a connection between the two incidents.

Reporting by Will Ziebell in MELBOURNE; Editing by Joseph Radford

Tech

JPMorgan, National Bank of Canada, others test debt issuance on blockchain

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) has tested a new blockchain platform for issuing financial instruments with the National Bank of Canada and other large firms, they said on Friday, seeking to streamline origination, settlement, interest rate payments and other processes.

FILE PHOTO: A sign outside the headquarters of JP Morgan Chase & Co in New York, U.S., September 19, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

The test on Wednesday mirrored the Canadian bank’s $ 150 million offering on the same day of a one-year floating-rate Yankee certificate of deposit, they said in a statement. The platform was built over more than a year using Quorum, a type of open-source blockchain that JPMorgan has developed inhouse and is in discussions to spin off.

Participants in the experiment included Goldman Sachs Asset Management, the fund management arm of Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and Legg Mason Inc’s (LM.N) Western Asset and other investors in the certificate of deposit.

Banks have poured millions of dollars to develop blockchain, the software first created to run cryptocurrency bitcoin, to streamline processes ranging from cross-border payments to securities settlement.

“Blockchain-related technologies have the potential to bring about major change in the financial services industry,” David Furlong, senior vice president of artificial intelligence, venture capital and blockchain at National Bank of Canada, said in a statement.

JPMorgan is considering spinning off Quorum because the technology has attracted significant outside interest, Umar Farooq, head of blockchain initiatives for JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank said in an interview.

He said it was taking too much time to field requests for help from users at other companies.

Charging for assistance is not an option because software support is not the bank’s business, a person familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity. The source was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The spin-off discussions are in the early stages and the bank has received interest from financial institutions and large enterprise technology companies, Farooq added. He declined to name the companies.

JPMorgan plans to beef up the Quorum team with dozens of engineers from the bank’s other divisions who have become familiar with the technology, he said.

Blockchain is in the early stages of development in the financial industry, but JPMorgan is optimistic about its potential, Farooq said.

“We haven’t really seen a lot of really large scale things go into production yet. There are few cases where blockchain can really shine.”

Reporting by Anna Irrera; Editing by Richard Chang

Tech