Sampo Bank promises to compensate only direct costs of technical problems

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Sampo Bank is not offering its customers a general compensation over the trouble caused by the glitches that have been affecting its online banking system. The consumers' association Kuluttajat and Minister of Labour Tarja Cronberg (green) have urged the bank to offer customers rebates in service charges to compensate for the gaps in service.
     
Sampo has promised to compensate only for expenses that were directly caused by the technical faults. In most cases these amount to a few euros, or none at all.
     "It is hard to measure the aggravation experienced by customers in monetary terms. When the situation has calmed down, we will make an analysis within the bank and decide on possible measures. Now is far too early for that", said Sampo Bank Deputy CEO Maarit Näkyvä at a press conference on Thursday.
     Näkyvä admits that Sampo has lost many customers.
     "In the week after Easter we lost 1,000 customers, that is what we know for sure. But on the basis of all of the feedback, I can say that the final figure will be significantly higher."
     Näkyvä believes that most of the problems emerging from the change in the system will be ironed out within a week or two.
     "The customers can be confident that their money is 100 per cent secure. Nothing has gone away, even if some accounts may not have shown up on line after the change", Näkyvä insists.
      Peter Schleidt, IT Director at the Danish Danske Bank, which now owns Sampo, said that some customers have continued to have problems in logging on to the bank's online service.
     Much work will also be needed to get to the root of the problems which caused erroneous bank statements to be sent to customers in the week after Easter. However, Schleidt warns that new difficulties could still emerge.
     "We have not necessarily looked in every corner yet", he notes.
      Lars Mørch, director of system integration for Danske Bank, admits openly that the extent of the problems related with the integration of the Sampo systems with those of its new owner also took Danske by surprise.
     "The linking of IT systems on this scale always causes some decline in the level of service, but we did not expect anything like this. I am very sorry that things are not going better", he says.
     
On Wednesday all debit and credit cards issued by Sampo failed to work in cash machines for a period of about six hours.
     Wednesday's failure was not caused by the introduction of the new system, but rather by the collapse of the card verification system of the entire Danske concern. "Murphy struck again", Näkyvä says.
     "It may be hard for you to believe this after everything that has happened, but nothing like this has ever happened before. Usually the reliability of the card system at Danske Bank has been at a high level", says IT director Schleidt.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Sampo Bank problems continue - cards fail again on Wednesday (10.4.2008)
  Hundreds of Sampo Bank clients considering changing banks (3.4.2008)
  Sampo Bank online problems continue (27.3.2008)
  Serious problems with launch of new online service of Sampo Bank (26.3.2008)

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