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Central Bank says sorry to switch member banks

The letter, addressed from the UAESwitch Division and signed by Khalifa Al Dhaheri, Senior Manager UAESwitch Division of the Central Bank of the UAE, stated: “As member banks will have gathered already, we encountered a major problem with the Dubai mode of the UAE Switch ON/X system late on Thursday evening. We must apologise to all member-banks for the inconvenience caused by the unfortunate event. The fact that this was a holiday weekend hampered activities, but we would like to thank all banks who were working with us during the past two days in trying to solve our problems.”

The letter further said: “Banks connected to Abu Dhabi and banks that have moved to our new system (OpeN/2) have been technically unaffected by the problem. Obviously, there has been the inconvenience of having fewer locations available. We will now move the banks that had tested and were waiting to join the OpeN/2 system over as quickly as possible. We will make other arrangements with the three banks that have not completed migration testing. We would ask for your utmost cooperation in helping us resolve the remaning issues.”

Explaining the contents of the letter for a layman, an official of a leading bank said: “This means that until the technical glitch is repaired, customers can only use direct ATMs of their banks i.e. customers can only use the cards provided by the banks at the ATMs of the bank itself, but they can use their debit cards as before.”

Meanwhile, several customers waiting to withdraw cash from the city’s ATMs said the machines were running out of cash. “I have been waiting to withdraw money since morning, and only after two hours, when I had an argument with the bank staff, was it possible for me to obtain the money,” said Moeez Vahanrabi, adding “it was utter chaos.”

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