BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 19th February 2021) – A first time Information Technology (IT) security incident affecting some services at the St.Kitts-Nevis- Anguilla National Bank Limited has customers asking for more information about what exactly has happened as well as what is the anticipated timeline for the issue to be rectified completely for what the bank says is a “temporary disruption”.
An individual speaking to this media house on the topic-choosing to withhold his name- said he is currently waiting on a transaction from a client so as to foot a very important bill and so he needs to get access to that particular sum of money as soon as possible.
“They need to bring out more information because people have interest in what is happening. I believe the public relations office needs to wake up from sleeping and advise the public daily…Personally, I am waiting on a transaction to go through because I have a bill payment to settle soon and so I need to get access to my money. They seem to be working in a vacuum and that should not be so. This is totally unacceptable. We are stakeholders of the bank whether big or small.”
Many individuals have also been expressing concerns via social media and radio airwaves.
The long standing financial institution officially addressed the “IT security incident” on Friday 12th February 2021 via a press release issued that day. The day before (11th February), an interruption to services including online banking and mobile banking was shared in a press release too.
That Friday, the bank extended its opening hours from 8AM to 5PM, going beyond the usual 4PM on Fridays so that customers could get access to their funds.
To date National Bank has issued four (4) press releases from management including Tuesday 16th February with the most recent being that of Thursday 18th February, advising in part that: “ The Bank is completely committed to taking the time to ensure we are keeping our customers informed of accurate, verified and relevant updates. Management St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank Limited.”
The longstanding financial institution which is observing its 50th anniversary-in its latest press statement-outlined that “It is important to stress that this is an isolated incident and we have never experienced a similar incident in our history.”
Members of the public are being told that the bank has “been working tirelessly” in addressing the matter.
“National Bank would like to provide an update on the IT security incident that we recently experienced. We are continuing to implement our plan to swiftly restore all of our services and apologize once again for the disruption to our services. The Bank is fully dedicated to ensuring that our customers are able to access all of our services as soon as possible so we have been working tirelessly to get our online and app-based systems back up and running. We know how important these services are to our clients and are pleased to say that the Bank is currently uploading all manual transactions to our systems. Our mobile app and our online services will be restored as soon as this process is completed. Customers will be able to login to their accounts and all transactions logged so balances will be up to date. We would like to reassure our customers that there has been no theft of funds from the bank. It is important to note that credit card services have not been impacted by this incident.”
According to the bank the services of ATMs, Wire transfers, Point of Sale, Telephone, Debit Card Services and Emails have been restored and are fully operational.
Customers are being thanked for their “understanding and patience during this temporary disruption.”