JACKSONVILLE, Fla.–VyStar Credit Union was forced to open some of its branches on Sunday as it continues to scramble to respond to a massive failure of its online and mobile banking platforms that has now lasted more than a week, resulting in frustrated members, thousands of negative comments online and media coverage of the outage.
VyStar CU has not provided any update on when the systems may be up again.
In an email to members over the weekend, the $12.3 billion VyStar confirmed its online and mobile banking solutions remained offline and said its “entire Senior Leadership Team would like to apologize for these delays and their impact on you.”
In response, VyStar said it was opening select branches from 1-5 p.m. on Sunday, had extended its contact center hours to 7 a.m.-9:30 p.m., and was “proactively refunding fees you may have incurred at VyStar as a result of the online & mobile banking conversion, including for NSFs, overdraft and courtesy pay, credit card, wire, consumer and commercial loan late fees, starting on May 14 through May 21.
“We will continue to monitor and may extend the fee waiver period, if needed,” VyStar said, stressing to members their accounts remained safe and the outage is not the result of a cyberattack. CUToday.info also confirmed with a security expert that there has been no indication of any cyberattack.
Failure Follows Attempted Conversion
The failure of its online and mobile banking solutions came as the credit union converted its systems to Nymbus, a CUSO in which VyStar has invested $20 million and which has offices in VyStar’s downtown Jacksonville headquarters office building.
In its email, VyStar CU told members, “Please know your accounts, balances and transactions have remained safe and secure throughout the conversion, and they should now accurately reflect what is on our core systems. In addition, direct deposits and other transactions were successfully processed in members’ accounts…We recognize this is not the experience you have come to expect from us. We are committed to making things right and ensuring future experiences are what we and our members have come to expect from VyStar.”
VyStar told a local news outlet it has 40 to 50 people working around the clock on the issue and has 900 people working member service.
Members Not Assuaged
But those assurances have not assuaged angry members, who continue to fill social media and local news media sites with complaints.
- “My family have been members of this credit union for 37 years, since we arrived here in 1985. I like sticking with what works, and VyStar is, despite is all, a great organization,” tweeted one members. “But we need to be able to access our money and pay our bills. Maybe it's time for a change.”
- “Whoever is in charge of IT at VyStar Credit Union needs to be fired,” tweeted another. “They should have been fired but after the shit show of this weekend that's still a hot mess, they need someone else running the app/online banking. 99% of the time I love my bank but this ridiculous.”
- “Hey VyStar Credit Union…I am pretty confident that your members aren’t really concerned with hearing from your ‘Chief Member Experience Officer’,” stated another. “I can confidently say your members don’t need this guy to explain that they are pissed with what they’ve “experienced” over the past week. Just my thoughts.”
- On the website of News4JAX one person complained they were unable to get through to the chat, telephones have long wait times, with one reporter telling a VyStar CU representative, “no one has even mentioned that it’s costing nearly $5 a gallon to go to a branch just to get a current balance.”
Video Apology
VyStar has apologized via two video messages, which have been posted on YouTube here and here.
VyStar also did an interview with News4Jax responding to the massive outage. The 822,000-member CU told News4Jax it had pushed back the date for the launch of its new banking platform several times and felt confident it was ready to launch but ran into “unforeseen challenges.”
CEO Returns to CU
During the interview, a VyStar representative was asked about the location of CEO Brian Wolfburg, who was away from the credit union at the time of the system failure.
In response, the VyStar spokesperson said, “The CEO was on a planned trip in a remote location already when these issues occurred. As soon as they occurred, he along with our entire VyStar leadership team, were in constant communication and have been, and he made plans and began transiting back to Jacksonville and is on his way back right now.”