Ulster Bank Customers 'May Need Stormont Help'

The Citizens' Advice Bureau (CAB) has said people affected by the ongoing Ulster Bank crisis may need to turn to Stormont for help.

Following a technical glitch on June 20, two weeks ago, customers have experienced problems accessing their accounts and spending wages and benefits.

Derek Alcorn of the CAB said people would be in "real hardship" if the problems persisted into the July holiday period, and the Department for Social Development should consider "contingency plans" for getting money to benefits claimants, using giros or other systems that would bypass the troubled bank.

But Stephen Cruise of Ulster Bank said the bank had already "paid out millions of pounds in benefits over the past 16 days to individuals who have come in to our counters".

He was vague about when the problems would be resolved, saying: "We'll break the back of it next week".

Mr Cruise said the problems persisted at Ulster Bank, although they were cleared up days ago at RBS and NatWest, because RBS was the "original brand" and the backlog had to be worked through "in sequential order".

Yesterday, the Chairman of the RBS Group, Sir Philip Hampton, visited Northern Ireland to discuss the crisis.

He met with Finance Minister Sammy Wilson at Stormont and told him the bank was "on course to solve the problem".

Mr Wilson said: "I relayed to Sir Philip our disappointment that several public assurances as to when the problem would be fixed have come and gone with no definite date for when the system will be back to normal. This has been a communications disaster by Ulster Bank leading to the widely held view that Northern Ireland customers have been treated as second class within the RBS Group."

(NE/GK)