Topline
Title: Overcoming the Glitch: Capital One's Steps Towards Rectifying the Outage
Capital One announced on Saturday that they made "significant strides" in addressing a glitch with a third-party vendor, leading to the restoration of account functions and processing of past transactions for most users. The bank had previously faced widespread issues with its digital services, as reported by thousands of clients, on Thursday.
Key Facts
Capital One acknowledged the service disruption, caused by complications with a third-party vendor, Fidelity Information Services (FIS), on Thursday. On Saturday, the bank declared that they had made "significant progress" in resolving the problem.
Around 2,100 issues were reported early Thursday morning, according to Dowdetector. Reported complications surged throughout Friday, but the number of complaints began to decrease by Saturday afternoon.
Approximately 90% of reported issues focused on difficulties accessing direct deposits. Some consumers expressed frustration over their inability to retrieve recent paychecks and other payments, while others encountered challenges navigating their accounts through the Capital One app.
In response to an influx of customer concerns on Thursday, Capital One assured clients it would cover reasonable fees accrued due to the outage and promised resolution by Friday morning. FIS informed Our Website that they were restoring applications affected by a local power outage near one of their data centers.
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Tangent
An incident affecting Citibank's clients occurred on Wednesday. Hundreds of customers reported fraud alerts, which Citibank later confirmed had been rectified.
Key Background
Capital One's service interruption came just following allegations from financial regulators that the bank had misled millions of customers out of more than $2 billion in interest. Capital One revealed in late December that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was investigating their savings accounts, resulting in accusations the bank manipulated account interest rates, even as national interest rates rose. Capital One also blocked account holders from transitioning to the bank's higher-yielding savings accounts, allegedly without marketing these options to existing customers. Capital One has disputed these allegations.
Further Reading
Enrichment Data:
Overview:
Capital One's service disruption was due to an incident with its third-party vendor, Fidelity Information Services (FIS). Here's a summary of how the issue unfolded:
- Event Origin: The service outage was initiated by a technical problem with FIS's power supply at a data center, causing inconvenience to Capital One clients.
- Impact: The disruption began on Thursday, January 16, and persisted into Friday, affecting around 2,000 users at its peak. Customers experienced difficulties with making payments, accessing their accounts, and receiving direct deposits.
- Efforts to Address the Issue: Capital One acknowledged the issue and expressed regret for any inconvenience. The bank collaborated with FIS to restore services and ultimately resolve the problem. FIS confirmed they were working to reinstate the unaffected applications and wrap up the posting of transactions from while offline.
- Progress and Timeline: By Friday, the number of reported incidents started to decrease, with approximately 3,000 issues reported by Friday afternoon. Capital One expected service to gradually return to normal by Friday and most issues to be resolved by Saturday morning.
- Customer Assurance: Capital One reassured clients that their funds were secure, and full account functionality would be restored as soon as feasible. The bank further clarified that the issue was unrelated to fraud or any malicious activity.
- Conclusion: By Sunday, January 19, Capital One reported that accounts were fully functional for all clients, encouraging users to check their accounts online and seek assistance as needed.
After announcing significant progress in addressing the glitch with third-party vendor Fidelity Information Services (FIS), Capital One assured their customers that reasonable fees accrued due to the outage would be covered. Despite the issues, Capital One clients can now use Capital One's services again, following the restoration of account functions and processing of past transactions.
