By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) yesterday pledged it is “working diligently” to restore its digital banking platform with businesses branding the three-day woe as “an absolute catastrophe” for commerce.

Multiple Bahamian companies told Tribune Business that the “crazy” situation had left them unable to make or receive payments, and conduct transactions vital to the smooth functioning of business, after they were “locked out” of their accounts when RBC’s online and mobile banking platform went down.

“Business has not been conducted for three days now due to RBC Online Banking being out of order,” one irate businessman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. “This the equivalent to Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) being out of fuel for three days, and the generator can’t run. It’s an absolute catastrophe. Please let us know why this is happening when everything now is done now online.”

RBC’s problems come at a time when the Central Bank, and the entire commercial banking sector, are driving Bahamian businesses and consumers to increasingly conduct business electronically via the Internet and mobile phones. The industry regulator is pushing to eliminate cheques by year-end 2024, and reduce reliance on other manual payment forms, but the issues encountered at RBC - long regarded as the Government’s bank and having the most corporate customers - adds weight to arguments this is too hasty and premature.

Another business owner, also speaking on condition of anonymity, shared a screen shot detailing an “unexpected outage” and saying: “RBC Caribbean Digital App is currently unable to launch. We will investigate the issue and try to resolve it as soon as possible.”

They added: “It’s crazy, and I can’t get any answer. We just cannot access our online accounts. I can’t pay my bills and am not sure how I am going to pay my staff tomorrow [today]. You cannot pay anybody. I am going to have to write my staff a cheque if this goes on like this. It’s been going on for three days.

“I cannot get into my account, I cannot pay anybody, I can’t see if I’ve been paid by anybody. If I go to the bank and get a ledger, they say they’ve been working on it around the clock but this is the third day. I see on Facebook that there are a million people complaining they cannot get access to their account.

“People are complaining that they can’t pay anybody. Some people have tried to sign in and been locked out of their account. It spins and you get this ‘unexpected outage’, or something that appears to be wrong. I got in and paid one bill yesterday, and then it spins and spins and kicks you out.”

The businessman added: “If I can’t pay my bills, do we go back to writing cheques? I still have them, can locate them and dust them off. They want to eliminate cheques, don’t want you to come into the bank, but how can you do business if you cannot access your online account?

“It’s getting to the end of the week, end of the month, when bills have to be paid. I’ve already warned my staff they will have to get paid by cheque tomorrow if it’s not fixed. In this day of online banking and digital transfers, with them basically telling you to stop writing cheques and stop coming into the branch, commerce has stopped if you bank with RBC.

“I love the idea of online. I love it and embraced it, but this has got to work. I love not standing in line like I used to, but it has got to work. It cannot be down for three days.” Their account was backed by other Bahamian corporate customers and online banking users, who revealed they have either been completely locked out or only enjoyed sporadic access to their accounts and digital payments over the past three days.

However, several said access had started to improve yesterday afternoon. RBC yesterday confirmed that the problems are Caribbean-wide, affecting all its territories including The Bahamas, and stemmed from a system upgrade implemented at the weekend.

An RBC spokesperson, responding to Tribune Business inquiries, said: “I can confirm that RBC Royal Bank is currently experiencing some technology difficulties with our digital banking platform. As a result, RBC clients may have experienced slow response time, intermittently, while trying to log-on or transact via RBC Digital Banking (online banking and mobile app).

“We know this is a significant inconvenience and we are working diligently to resolve this urgently. In fact, we are already seeing a significant improvement of our platform’s performance since this afternoon. In the interim, we suggest to try to transact via RBC Digital Banking during off-peak business hours, as we have seen greater success for digital transactions during those hours.

“Alternatively, clients can continue to make use of our ATMs or pay with their cards at any point-of-sale device for most of their day-to-day transactions. For more complex transactions only, we invite clients to visit a branch closest to them. Again, we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this is causing our clients and thank them for their patience.”