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ICBC System to Restart Operations
The temporarily paralyzed banking system at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in the Beijing area is expected to return to normal within a week, officials from the bank said Tuesday.
The abnormal operations of the bank's system were caused by a system upgrade which started on Saturday at noon, said Zhu Zhangyin, an official with the Information Department of the ICBC Beijing Branch.
ICBC closed its banking units in the city for 24 hours starting Saturday noon.
All the ICBC units re-opened to the public on Sunday afternoon.
Daily work at most ICBC savings banks in the city have returned to normal although some may still need a further time to get used to the new system, Zhu said.
"The operational crash caused me big trouble," said Yang Ling, a Beijing resident, yesterday.
"I could not withdraw money using my bank card when I badly needed cash on Sunday night," Yang said.
The bank notice said that its new banking system would start operating at 1:00 pm on Sunday, however, "my bank card still failed to work when I tried several automatic teller's machines (ATM) on Monday morning," Yang said.
Long queues were seen in front of many ATMs in the city yesterday as the machines worked unusually slowly and some broke down.
Many ICBC savings banks in the city were crowded yesterday as people came to change their bankbooks for new ones.
The new bankbook has a new account number with a 19-digit number, instead of the former 12-digit number.
The new system will provide new services in the future to promote security and convenience, Zhu said.
There is no need to rush to go to ICBC banks to get the new bankbooks since the old ones are still valid.
The banks will automatically change bankbooks for customers whenever they handle transactions at bank units, according to Zhu.
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