IT Error Costs NAB Additional $156 million
IT Error Costs NAB Additional $156 million
June 14th, 2006: Shareholders at the National Australia Bank will be looking at how much a decade's worth of overcharging has cost them - and how much a decent data management system would have saved.
Various figures - from $60 to $174 million - are being reported as the cost to the NAB for repaying 140,000 accounts and 55,000 'financial package arrangements' since 1994, due to a combination of IT and human error.
Even taking the median figure, it is still a bad deal more than the $18 million originally figured in to cover the debit tax and annual fee overpayments announced in May. Ahmed Fahour, manager of NAB's Australian operations, sought to place the responsibility on the usual and unspecified "human error" and a complex loan application system for the overcharging. He apologised.
This, however, begs the question as to how such a major player in an industry which is famously leading-edge, at least if one is to believe vendors and banks, in information technology and the management of data, could have made such a mistake over such a period.
Related Article:
Database Error Sees ANZ Bank Refund AU$45M