FRANKFURT, April 18 (Reuters) – Widespread outages affecting customers at Deutsche Bank’s (DBKGn.DE), opens new tab Postbank arm are prompting calls for legislation to protect consumers.
A consumer protection group in the German state of Bavaria on Thursday called on politicians to enact a law that would compensate customers with lump-sum payments when banking services are interrupted.
The group said a move would discipline banks and be modelled on regulations overseeing airlines, which in certain cases bind them to compensate flyers for delays or cancelled flights.
Last year, glitches at Postbank resulted in customers complaining they were locked out of their accounts for weeks, resulting in the bank’s regulator overseeing the cleanup and cuts in bonuses for some of Deutsche’s top managers.
“It is unacceptable that financial service providers should not have to fear any significant consequences due to massive disruptions caused by their own fault,” said Marion Zinkeler, head of the Bavarian consumer protection agency.
Source: REUTER