Kiwibank glitch reimbursement will take longer

Faith Tahuri wanted to buy nappies for her 11-month-old daughter, Zhariya Hiroti, but found she couldn't access her money.

KiwiBank customers whose bank accounts were cleaned out by a maintenance glitch on Sunday will have a longer wait to be reimbursed.

Kiwi Bank spokesman Bruce Thompson said the fix which would see all customers whose money had been wrongly taken out of their accounts reimbursed was taking longer than expected.

KiwiBank had originally hoped customers would be reimbursed by this morning but knew this was now unachievable and said it would be completed within days - if not sooner.

About 6000 customers who made Eftpos and credit card transactions between 6.30am and 12.30pm on Sunday while the bank carried out planned maintenance discovered they had still been charged for the failed transactions or had made one transaction but charged several times leaving some of them overdrawn.

Auckland Robert Bissett's accounts had been cleaned out and he had no access to money while he waited for KiwiBank to repay him. While solo-mother Faith Tahuri was borrowing money from her family to pay for her 11-month-old daughter's nappies and baby formula.

Mr Thompson said the fix would be done in a single computer run and affected less than 1 per cent of the bank's customer base.

"We are working with individual customers who are experiencing hardship with overdrafts and are making a final resolution of this issue an absolute priority.

"While in percentage terms it is only a very small number of customers affected, the impact on them as individuals can be significant and stressful.

"We will put it right, but it will take time."

KiwiBank was offering affected customers emergency overdrafts free of charge and any fees incurred as a result of what has happened would be reimbursed.