Mizuho Financial Group Inc. has shut down its ATM network and online-banking service for the weekend as Japan’s third-largest bank continues to deal with computer problems that have plagued it since March 15.
During a March 18 press conference, executives at Mizuho said the bank plans to reboot the affected services on March 21, though it might take an extra day to fully restore the system. The bank has 5,622 ATMs in its network.
Mizuho announced some 620,000 salary-payment transactions worth 125.6 billion yen (US$1.5 billion) were not processed on March 18 because of the computer problem, which has yet to be identified. The bank advised its customers whose pay is affected by the problem to visit any of its 440 branches, where they may withdraw up to 100,000 yen.
The bank’s president, Satoru Nishibori, told reporters Mizuho is still investigating the branches where the problems started.
Mizuho expects the ATM problem to affect about 1 million customers, who also are unable to conduct transactions at another bank’s ATMs because of the problems.
Nishibori suggested on March 17 that a surge in financial transactions in the aftermath of last week’s earthquake and tsunami might be causing the computer issues. A bank spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal Mizuho does not believe the earthquake caused the problems (
Nicole Sturgill, a research director in the retail banking and cards practice at TowerGroup, believes the problems likely stem from a systems problem.
“I would first look at their [information technology] locations to see if that might be the root issue,” she tells PaymentsSource.
A 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s Northeast coast March 11. A tsunami that followed has caused havoc in the area, including the potential for a core meltdown at a nuclear power plant.
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