By Caitlin Powell and Gemma Grant
Commonwealth Bank users couldn’t access funds and had overdrawn accounts following an error which caused unexpected duplicates of transactions.
The problem came to light on Saturday morning, when the bank posted an apology on X saying that “some customers are seeing duplicate transactions from payments”.
The duplicate transactions started appearing on Saturday morningCredit: Natalie Boog
“We are working to reverse these transactions as a matter of urgency and any fees charged will be refunded,” the statement said. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for being patient with us.”
The deducted amounts had all been refunded by shortly after 5.30pm on Saturday, according to the bank. A new statement said that the “process to reverse these transactions has been completed”.
But the incident prompted a rash of online complaints from customers across the day.
“Me and my partner are now stuck in Queensland unable to get to the airport because our cards are overdrawn,” one reply on X said. “We are going to miss our flights … This is a disgrace.”
Other customers expressed their frustration with the bank, which is among the largest listed companies on the Australian Stock Exchange.
“Once I get my money back I’m switching to a different bank. This is beyond just a simple apology,” another reply on X said.
It is currently unclear how many people have been affected by the issue, and how it was originally caused.
CBA also reported “intermittent issues” with accessing their mobile app during the afternoon, which have since been resolved.
This incident comes days after the Commonwealth Bank apologised and agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine last Thursday. They were found to have sent 170 million emails that breached Australian anti-spam laws.
The marketing messages sent to CBA customers between November 2022 and April 2024 breached the 2003 Spam Act because they did not include a way to unsubscribe, the Australian Communications and Media Authority said.
A total of 34 million messages were sent to people who had either not consented or who had withdrawn their consent to receive such messages, the authority said.
During the week, Westpac and St George customers faced three consecutive days of interruptions to their online and mobile banking services.
“We’re aware that customers are experiencing further issues accessing online and mobile banking,” said a statement from Westpac on X. “Our teams are currently working to fix the issue.”
The outages stopped Westpac customers from seeing their account information online, and caused issues when trying to transfer funds between accounts.
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With AAP