Capital One says it has restored service after a days-long outage locked thousands of customers from their accounts.
“Account functionality for all customers is now restored,” the bank holding company wrote in a post Sunday (Jan. 19) on X. “We sincerely apologize for how frustrating this experience has been. We are committed to making it right. We encourage customers to check their accounts online and contact us for any support.”
The trouble began last week when a power outage at a third-party vendor — FIS Global — impacted some customers’ ability to access Capital One services such as payment processing, deposits and banking.
A report by CNN notes that users began reporting problems starting Thursday (Jan. 16) and into Friday (Jan. 19), with the company’s X account being flooded by complaints — many using harsh language — from customers who weren’t able to pay bills or access funds.
Last week also saw an outage at Citibank, with that company’s mobile app shutting down. Customers also reported technical issues last week related to fraud alerts and long wait times for customer calls to its fraud department. Citibank resolved the issue by Thursday morning.
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that service interruptions such as these cost Global 2000 companies an estimated $400 billion each year.
“The financial toll is more significant for smaller businesses, where downtime can lead to customer attrition and repair costs that may include brand trust campaigns,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month.
Open payments platforms, that report added, help reduce these risks by rerouting transactions through alternative gateways, making sure that businesses stay in operation even in the face of substantial technical failures.
The outage at Capital One wasn’t the only piece of bad news for the company last week. On Tuesday (Jan. 14), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sued Capital One, alleging that the bank promoted a savings account as offering one of the nation’s “highest” interest rates while offering another that paid out rates that were as much as 14 times higher.
“The CFPB is suing Capital One for cheating families out of billions of dollars on their savings accounts,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a news release. “Banks should not be baiting people with promises they can’t live up to.”
Reached for comments by PYMNTS, Capital One provided a statement saying it “strongly” disagrees with the CFPB’s claims and will “vigorously defend” itself in court.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) reportedly dropped a lawsuit against Comerica Bank that targeted the bank’s handling of a federal benefits program, alleging that it provided poor service to the recipients of benefits.
The Bureau told a U.S. District Court in a filing submitted Friday (April 11) that it was dismissing the suit, Reuters reported Friday.
The CFPB sued Comerica Bank in December, targeting the bank’s handling of the Direct Express program, which it had administered on behalf of the Department of the Treasury since 2008 and enables about 3.4 million federal beneficiaries to receive their monthly benefits payments through prepaid debit cards.
In its complaint, the CFPB alleged that Comerica Bank deliberately disconnected customer service calls, charged consumers illegal ATM fees, misled fraud victims, imposed illegal terms of service on consumers seeking to stop payments, failed to investigate account problems and forced consumers to close accounts to stop preauthorized payments.
“By deliberately disconnecting millions of calls and harvesting illegal junk fees, Comerica boosted its bottom line at the expense of Americans living on a fixed income,” then-CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said at the time in a press release.
Reached by PYMNTS on the day the lawsuit was announced, Comerica Bank said in an emailed statement that it would continue to defend its record as the financial agent for the Direct Express program and that it filed a lawsuit against the CFPB in November challenging the Bureau’s “regulatory overreach and its handling of this case.”
“Throughout the CFPB’s investigation, we have cooperated by sharing information and data to illustrate the unique nature of this program and the fact that we operate with the oversight of the Fiscal Service,” the statement said. “Despite our good faith efforts to provide this critical context, the CFPB has consistently ignored our arguments and documentation.”
It was reported in March that the CFPB asked a federal judge to pause the enforcement action that the agency filed against Comerica Bank.
CFPB Chief Legal Officer Mark Paoletta said in court papers that the agency was considering next steps and that the new CFPB leadership sought “time to review the matter,” Reuters reported March 3.
