By Paula Lindo

Copyright newsday

Republic Bank said on October 1 that their teller systems were experiencing a technical challenge, which resulted in service delays at its branches. It later said that its systems were back up and fully functional. It said branch opening hours would be extended for non-mall branches to 3 pm.

Newsday visited one Port of Spain branch at about 12.45 pm. A female customer said she had entered the branch only to be told that the system was down. She was not able to get through with the transactions she came to do.

Another woman said she was calm about the situation as there was nothing to do but wait for the system to come back up.

“There’s nothing you can feel, there’s nothing you can do but just wait. There’s nothing else you could do, what else could you do? Even if you have a business and you have to pay salaries, people will just have to wait. Even if the money is going into their accounts, they have to wait on the system.”

A mail carrier said she went to drop mail but was not able to check with the tellers on what funds might be in her account. She said she heard all the Republic Bank branches were shut down.

A male customer said he was told the system was down and he could wait a while because it might come back, but there was no definite answer.

A customer waiting in the bank line said it was disappointing that Republic Bank’s systems could be down and there was no notice until they went to the bank.

Within the bank there were mostly elderly people sitting and waiting, with one man raising his voice saying that he did not want to be told to come back on October 2.

A manager at the bank said customers had been mostly calm about the situation, but some customers were also concerned with not receiving their pensions.

“They have their other issues with the government and their pensions. I think the government announced last week that payments were delayed. Today is the 1st, so they would have been expecting to get funds into their accounts, and it’s not there.”

On September 26, the Ministry of People, Social Development and Family Services said there would be a delay in the delivery of social welfare cheques to recipients of senior citizens’ pension, disability and public assistance grants and food support for October 2025. It said this was due to a technical glitch at the ministry, later confirmed to Newsday by the Finance Minister to be a malfunctioning printer. At the time it said people using direct deposit were not affected.

The bank extended its appreciation to customers for their patience and understanding.