Clients PKO Bank Polski collided with a serious problem – unexpected failure of the BLIC strategy and payment cards. Many users only found out after unsuccessful payment attempts banking systems do not work as expected. The bank issued an authoritative announcement, but many believe it was besides late.
BLIK and payment cards no longer working
Unexpected problems occurred on Sunday night on Monday. From 01:00 a.m. to 04:40 p.m., bank customers could not usage payment cards, ATMs, deposits or BLIK. The problem affected both individual customers and entrepreneurs.
According to authoritative information PKO BPDuring the failure, users could not:
- carry out card and BLIK transactions at ATMs and PKO BP payments,
- activate fresh cards and transmit the PIN in the IKO application and the iPKO service,
- verify the PIN for transactions secured by 3D Secure.
In addition, there have been difficulties with:
- card payments in fixed and online stores,
- withdrawals from ATMs of another banks,
- adding cards to mobile services specified as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Garmin Pay, SwatchPAY! or Xiaomi Pay.
The bank warned, but... besides late
PKO BP usually informs customers in advance of the planned maintenance work. This time, however, the message did not appear until Saturday, which caused many users to miss it. Not everyone regularly visits the bank's website or mobile app, and the deficiency of an earlier text message or push notification aroused discontent among customers.
“This is simply a scandal! I only found out at the store erstwhile I tried to pay for the groceries! If I had known earlier, I would have paid cash" - writes 1 of the users on the banking forum.
The bank apologized for the inconvenience and assured that the method work was necessary to improve the safety and stableness of the system.
Could this be avoided?
Internet banking experts stress that maintenance work in banking systems is necessaryBut the way they communicate leaves much to be desired. another banks apply SMS, e-mails and push notificationsto effectively scope customers. PKO BP could have utilized a akin solution, alternatively of relying solely on the website.
Some banks implement solutions that let gradual exclusion of servicesto minimize the effects of the crash. In this case, customers were completely cut off from access to their resources, which could have caused stress and panic.
How can we prepare for specified situations?
Emergency bank failures can happen in any system. To avoid problems in the future, it is worth:
- Always have any cash. – even if you mostly usage non-cash payments,
- Set notifications from the banking applicationso as not to miss failure messages,
- Use more than 1 bank account, which will let flexibility in the event of failure of 1 of them,
- Follow the social media bankwhere the most fast updates of the failure occur.
PKO BP regains control, but the taste remained
Currently all services have already been restoredand customers can re-use electronic banking. However, the way the bank has ordered communication in this situation can make many users start reasoning about alternate solutions.
More here:
Emergency BLIC failure at PKO BP? Angry customers, the bank warned besides late
