Caught by NetBank problems?

Walking though Paddington today I noticed a few of these advertisements on bus stops advertising the ‘marvel’ that is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s NetBank.

Is NetBanking easier then reading this billboard?

Apparently not, according to many of its customers recently. In the past week the CBA’s customers have faced a service that does not function fully[6], if available at all[7].

Initially blamed on ‘hackers’ causing excess traffic[1,4]. And later on excess traffic due to the end of the financial year[5].

There has been a trend of late for all the big banks to push people towards online banking as a way to cut down on staffing costs. But if you are going to push people to use a service, you should make sure that the service will be able to cope with the traffic you direct at it.

(And to think back in March, Sun thought that CBA was one of its major success stories.)

1. Glitch snarls CBA’s online bank (Chris Zappone, TheAge, 29 June 2009)
2. NetBank fails on last days of financial year (News, 30 June 2009)
3. NetBank problems linked to ‘malicious’ traffic (SMH, 30 June 2009)
4. CBA blames NetBank problems on hackers (TheAge, 30 June 2009)
5. CBA details NetBank battle plan (Suzanne Tindal, ZDNet, 30 June 2009)
6. NetBank woes put focus on CBA’s IT (WAToday, 3 July 2009)
7. CBA Netbank goes offline (Darren Pauli, Computerworld, 3 July 2009)
8. Bug leaves NetBank customers in the dark (SMH, 4 July 2009)
9. Sun Microsystems – Australia – Success Stories – Commonwealth Bank of Australia (12 March 2009)