Standard Bank customer woes

CARD holders of Standard Bank Namibia who are experiencing problems paying with their cards in shops will have to suffer for a few weeks more – the system fault might only be rectified by the end of this month.

Several shops and supermarket branches all over Windhoek and other towns put up notices at the start of the festive season that they could not accept Standard Bank debit or credit cards at all, enraging customers who abandoned their shopping trolleys and walked out after finding out their cards could not be swiped due to a programming error.
Supermarkets and shops that have Standard Bank Speedpoint terminals installed at their tills could not process the cards of other banks either, and lost millions of Namibia dollars during the Christmas shopping spree. ‘I cannot reveal the amount to you, but it is millions,’ a supermarket manager told The Namibian yesterday.
He refused to have his name or that of the supermarket published, for fear of customers staying away.
‘The problem is with Standard Bank,’ a local Internet provider informed clients in a recent e-mail.
Yesterday, a Standard Bank official at one of the Windhoek branches told The Namibian that the system fault would only be fixed in three weeks’ time.
‘It can only be done at the end of January. We hope it will be the end of that sorry saga,’ the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Namibian yesterday tried in vain to reach the marketing department of Standard Bank or senior staff in the credit card division.
‘They are all on leave and only return next Monday,’ a bank clerk said.
The bank’s website did not carry any information on the problem or r an apology to customers.
In October last year, Standard Bank issued ‘Namibianised’ debit and credit cards to its customers as part of a changeover to a Namibian payment system called Namswitch after decades of using the South African Saswitch system.
Bank customers also received new PIN (Personal Identification) numbers.
D Day for the switchover was November 7 2008.
However, its clients still cannot do Internet banking or have their cards swiped in shops.
‘Many of the features and benefits have changed on the new cards. To ensure that the conversion process is as smooth as possible, we have undertaken a lot of communication activity both to our staff, and the general public,’ Standard Bank Namibia stated in a notification to clients last year.