There are more banking woes for long-suffering Canadian consumers after The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) said that some customers viewing accounts via the Internet may see duplicate information for transactions conducted late last week.
In a statement, the bank says customers with 'personal line of credit' accounts may see duplicate transactions when viewing account balances via the Internet, although the account balances shown online are correct.
The problem is caused by an error with the software the bank uses to display online account balances. Customers accessing account transactions via ATMs, the telephone or in branches are not affected and CIBC says its own official transaction records are accurate and up to date.
The bank insists that customers will not experience any non-sufficient funds or other charges as a result of the matter.
The systems failure is the second to hit CIBC is as many months. In July, a computer glitch caused transactions to be billed twice on 60,000 accounts.
Other Canadian banks have also been dogged by computer problems in recent months. Last week a software glitch at Toronto Dominion Bank branches prevented some customers from accessing up-to-date account balances, while in June a software upgrade at The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) caused payroll delays for thousands of workers. According to local press reports, the systems problem at RBC cost the bank $9 million, after tax, to fix.
In Australia meanwhile, Westpac has apologised to Internet banking customers after a batch of funds transfer transactions were duplicated due to "human error" during overnight processing. A bank spokesman would not say how many transactions were affected but advised customers to contact the bank if they experienced any problems as a result of the mix-up.