BNZ outage prompts outrage while others say get over it

Customers of the BNZ has expressed frustration after they had problems accessing the bank's online services for hours yesterday. Photo/Lin Ferguson.

A banking outage at the Bank of New Zealand has prompted outrage from some who couldn't pay for groceries or staff wages while others urged patience.

Customers of the bank began reporting problems logging into their internet and mobile phone banking from around 2pm yesterday spurring more than 145 people to post comments on BNZ's Facebook page.

At 4.29pm the banks said it was "resolving a technical issue affecting all our online banking channels".

"The technical support team is working to fix the issue and we'll update you again at 5pm. ATMs and cards are not being impacted."

But some did report problems with cards and even phone banking.

Nadine Calder said she had to leave the supermarket without paying after her card wouldn't work.

"Just had to leave my weeks groceries at the checkout."

Alison Black said she tried to buy tea and her eftpos card declined.

"Local ATM also not working. Internet and mobile banking not working. Nothing wrong with my card as I used it yesterday. Also just got paid so plenty of money in account. This outage has been going on for hours."

Douglas Ruskell said in his Facebook post that phone banking was down, not just online.

One woman said she was on holiday in Bali and was frustrated she couldn't transfer money to her account.

"Absolute joke you guys not impressed. It's always down. We are in Bali wanting to transfer money but can't. Good work team NOT.

"Also hubby needed to transfer money to my account as I had automatic payments going out today he can't do that either so awesome I will get late fees, " said Emma Jayne Thomson.

Leith Harding wanted to know when it would be fixed so staff could be paid.

"Any chance you could be clearer on resolution time than this. We have to pay staff today."

But Jon O'Brien was more sanguine about the situation.

"Oh the outrage. Take a pill and try again in an hour. The world won't end and the money will get through."

Estelle Rima urged people to give the bank a chance to fix the issues.

"Wow! The amount of people crying over a system going down. Its gonna happen! Hello! That's kind of what you would expect with technology??!!

"Give them a chance to resolve the issue rather than thinking sharing your two cents about how you can't move a dollar in or out of your account is bringing the world to an end. It doesn't hurt to exercise a bit of patience"

By 7.05pm last night the BNZ said its sytems were continuing to come back online.

"We expect services to soon be back to normal. Apologies again for the inconvenience this may have caused you."