I cannot believe so many mainstream media outlets are continuing to refer to last week's meltdown of the National Australia Bank's payment system as a glitch. People were left stranded around the country with no cash.
The bank's solution was to offer "cash advances" of limited amounts if you could make it to a branch with proof of payment.
CHOICE has spoken out today (five days after the start of the problem) to say the payment systems our banks are relying on are out-of-date.
Surely this is a governance issue. As consumers we are essentially told to have our pay credited to our account automatically. That's the way the world works so I would think that puts a pretty strong onus on the institutions we entrust with our funds to ensure, even guarantee, access to those funds.
Perhaps it's time the banks used some of their enormous profits to actually build and provide the infrastructure and technology we supposedly pay all those fees to finance.
Or perhaps it's time consumers voted with their feets and, once restored and all funds make it into the accounts they should be in, we close our NAB accounts and find a more trustworthy keeper of our hard-earned money.
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