Absa-powered card machines debited transactions from December 13-18 last year as late as January 6 on clients’ accounts, Capitec Bank Holdings confirmed.
Charl Nel, Head of Communications for South Africa’s fastest growing retail bank Capitec, said it was unusual for the late submission of transactions by the Absa Group, but it is not outside the interbank card system rule.
“In particular the majority of these transactions occurred at retailers supported by Absa and who have the card machine integrated into their own till systems,” said Nel when responding to a Fin24 report.
The report said clients thought their accounts had been compromised through hacking after recieving SMS notifications and arrived at Capitec branches on Sunday when the delayed transactions went through.
Nel is uncertain how many clients of other banks were affected, but assured Capitec Bank clients that none of their accounts had a double deduction of the same amount.
Capitec said the clients affected by Absa’s delayed transaction submissions received an SMS notification from Capitec confirming their purchase on the day the transaction took place, thus confusion was caused when the payments were only authorised on January 6.
“Capitec Bank acknowledges the significant inconvenience that this has placed on our clients and we sincerely apologise. We are urgently investigating the problem and updates will be released as soon as possible,” said Capitec in a statement.
