This article is from page 11 of the 2012-07-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 11 JPG
A JUDGE has said he will refuse installment orders sought by Ulster Bank until it gets its “house in order.”
Judge Patrick Durcan has been refusing to grant the applications in light of recent problems at the bank, which have caused massive disruptions to customers.
Banks can seek an installment order from the court to compel debtors to pay a fixed amount each month.
Ulster Bank sought two such orders at Ennis District Court on Friday. However, Judge Durcan informed the solicitor acting on behalf of the Bank that he would “not be granting any installment orders until they get their house in order.”
He said the recent problems experienced by the bank had caused “huge inconvenience to the people of Ireland”.
Judge Durcan adjourned both cases to December 14. IT problems have affected hundreds of thousands of Ulster Bank’s customers for almost one month. A technical problem dur- ing a software upgrade at its parent company RBS disrupted electronic transactions and created a massive backlog processing payments.
In a statement yesterday, the Bank said, “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.”
The statement continues, “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”.
Judge Durcan was also critical of the level of information provided by Banks on debtors when seeking installment orders.
Referring to an order sought by the Bank of Ireland, Judge Durcan said, “The behaviour of the banks is nothing short of scandalous.”