Cus­tomers of Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed had to en­dure long lines and at times could not com­plete their trans­ac­tions as the bank was hit by 'tech­no­log­i­cal prob­lems' af­fect­ing its cus­tomer trans­ac­tions, in­clud­ing mo­bile and In­ter­net bank­ing.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Nigel Bap­tiste con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion as he apol­o­gised to all the bank's cus­tomers for the sit­u­a­tion.

The prob­lem first oc­curred this morn­ing re­sult­ing in trans­ac­tions at the bank's branch­es be­ing slowed and caus­ing long lines.

"There was an er­ror that re­sult­ed in the sys­tem first grad­u­al­ly slow­ing down and then even­tu­al­ly be­ing non-re­spon­sive," Bap­tiste told the T&T Guardian.

The prob­lem last­ed about an hour and was rec­ti­fied.

How­ev­er, it re­curred this af­ter­noon.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly it seems the er­ror has re­curred so the tech­ni­cal team is re­view­ing again. Hope­ful­ly, by the time most of the branch­es re­open at 3 p.m., it will have per­ma­nent­ly fixed," Bap­tiste said.

"Re­gret­tably clients us­ing our mo­bile, IB and ABM so­lu­tions will be af­fect­ed un­til that so­lu­tion oc­curs," he said.

He lat­er con­firmed that the ATMs were not af­fect­ed.

Bap­tiste said the tim­ing of the prob­lem could "not have been worse".

"The bank apol­o­gis­es to all our cus­tomers who would have been af­fect­ed first of all by slow pro­cess­ing time and then even­tu­al­ly be­ing un­able to con­clude their trans­ac­tions," he said.

"The tim­ing for this type of er­ror could not have been worse com­ing af­ter a pub­lic hol­i­day and on the first day of a new month. We re­gret the in­ci­dent and will con­tin­ue to do what­ev­er we can to avoid re­cur­rences and/or en­sure they are speed­i­ly re­solved," he said.