Germany: Programming Glitch Freezes German Bank Cards

The January sales are in full swing but millions of Germans have been left unable to pay for their purchases with their bank cards.

German bank customers began reporting problems in withdrawing cash and making electronic payments on New Year’s Day.

One in four cards have now been affected — that’s a total of more than 30 million.

Christian Achilles from the Association of German Savings Banks says it’s all down to the new year.

[Christian Achilles, Communications Head, DSGV Savings Bank Assoc.]:
„There’s been a programming error with some bank and credit cards which has led to bank machines and terminals being unable to recognise the year 2010. This means that the affected cards are not readable.“

French credit card chip company Gemalto has taken responsibility for the error and is promising to sort it out quickly.

The world’s largest maker of credit card chips says it’s working with German banks to find a way to avoid having to replace the affected cards.

Experts estimate that it could cost up to 300 million euros.

The Federation of German Consumer Organisations has criticised banks for not providing enough support for customers.

[Manfred Westphal, Federation of German Consumer Organizations]:
„The problem is that bank customers can’t find out at the moment whether their cards are affected and if so how limited their usage is. The banks are not informing them. It’s a scandal.“

Banks say they hope to have the problem sorted by Monday within Germany.

But they say using German cards abroad could be tricky for some time to come.

(NTDTV)