Ulster Bank 'Back To Normal'

Ulster Bank says its systems are up and running again following a technical failure nearly a month ago.

The bank said most of its customers would now be experiencing normal service but some people might still have problems.

Bosses at Ulster Bank had set the target of being back to normal by this week.

A computer failure at RBS Group, the bank's parents company, on June 19 led to people losing access to up-to-date account balances.

Direct debits and standing orders were affected, and some people were stranded abroad without the money from their pay to be able to get home.

Ulster Bank responded with longer opening hours, including keeping 10 Northern Irish branches open on the July 12 bank holiday.

Antoinette McKeown from the Consumer Council welcomed the return to normal service but said Ulster Bank must now make it clear what kind of compensation would be offered.

The bank's statement in full was: "All of our systems are running as normal this morning in the timeframes we would expect and normal service has now been restored for the majority of our customers. Given the scale of the incident, the clean up continues and a small percentage of outstanding transactions are being processed over the next couple of days. There is no doubt that there will be reconciliations to some customer accounts that also need to take place over the coming days and weeks. However, for the majority of customers it is now business as usual.

"Once again we would like to unreservedly apologise to our customers."

(NE)