Stimulus Payments Slow Down Online Banking
April 15 2020 - 7:00PM
Dow Jones News
By Orla McCaffrey
Customers at some banks across the country were temporarily
unable to access their accounts online or through mobile apps on
Wednesday, shortly after the first round of government stimulus
checks started landing in bank accounts.
Customers reported trouble accessing account information at
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., U.S. Bancorp, PNC
Financial Services Group and Truist Financial Corp., among
others.
The banks acknowledged that some customers had problems logging
in throughout the afternoon and said they were working to resolve
the issues. PNC, Citigroup and JPMorgan said in the late afternoon
that they had fixed the problem. Truist said most of its online and
mobile services had been restored.
A PNC spokeswoman said an "unprecedented volume" of customers
logging on to check for stimulus payments prompted the network
issues.
The payments are part of the economic-relief package passed by
Congress last month to try to keep the economy afloat during the
coronavirus crisis. It relies heavily on banks as the conduit.
The Treasury Department began transferring payments to banks on
Friday. Banks had until Wednesday to start transferring the money
to customers.
The glitches weren't limited to large financial
institutions.
Fiserv Inc., which provides the underlying technology for many
banks, particularly smaller ones, said "exceptionally high
systemwide volume" led to intermittent accessibility Wednesday.
Fiserv said midafternoon that its services had returned to
normal.
An alert on the website of Summit Credit Union in Madison, Wis.,
warned that "online and mobile banking systems are experiencing
slowness" because of a wave of customers hoping to find their
stimulus deposits.
Wells Fargo said it didn't experience connectivity issues
Wednesday. But its daily volume of direct deposits hit a record
high and was roughly three times the average, according to Ed
Kadletz, the bank's head of deposit products.
Wells Fargo had been preparing to handle the flow by, for
example, ironing out how to handle direct deposits that arrive in
accounts that have been closed. It also temporarily halted
collection on negative balances to avoid eating up customers'
stimulus funds.
Ben Eisen contributed to this article.
Write to Orla McCaffrey at orla.mccaffrey@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 15, 2020 18:45 ET (22:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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