Scotiabank confirms another outage, this time affecting online accounts

Scotiabank has confirmed reports of another outage after July’s disruption to direct deposits, this time affecting user logins to online accounts.

“Some customers may be experiencing intermittent login issues when accessing their online accounts, there is no impact to direct deposit or other services,” a Scotiabank spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to CTVNews.ca.

“Our teams are working hard to resolve the issue as soon as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.”

As of Friday afternoon, third-party website Downdetector reported less than 100 user-submitted outage reports — a decline from earlier numbers tracking more than 1,800 reports shortly after 11 a.m. ET.

According to the site’s data, reported outages were split between “online banking” and “mobile login” issues, at 32 and 52 per cent, respectively. An additional 16 per cent were listed as “mobile banking” problems.

A heatmap generated by the site also showed concentrations of reports in major cities across Canada, including in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, the Atlantic region and the Prairies.

Friday’s disruption marks another spike in user-submitted outage reports since late July, when instead of login errors, impacted customers found that direct deposits, including paycheques, failed to appear in their accounts.

The July outage included a peak of roughly 5,000 Downdetector reports, more than twice as many as Friday’s disruption and making for a surprise stumbling block for some amid already financially tight circumstances.

“It’s a struggle to make ends meet,” wrote Halifax customer service associate Matthew Lonar in a July email to CTVNews.ca.

“If the situation isn’t resolved soon, I’m going to have to figure out how I am going to eat tonight and bills are going to go unpaid.”

Following the pay-day disruption, Scotiabank addressed the impact on customers.

“We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience the earlier technical issue has had on our clients, and sincerely appreciate their patience as we worked through this,” a bank spokesperson told CTVNews.ca in a July email.

“We have resolved the technical issue impacting our clients’ inbound payments.”

With files from Daniel Otis