Nordea Bank has advised customers to expect two large-scale service disruptions, one of which will occur this weekend. The first will begin at 4 am Sunday morning and will end the same day at 2 pm at the earliest.
The second break will occur during the weekend of 23 --25 October. The bank said it will provide additional details about the duration of the second break at a later date.
The financial group has called on customers to prepare for the service break by withdrawing cash if needed and to use online banking and other electronic services at other times. It said that bank cards will not necessarily work for purposes like food purchases. In addition, mobile banking services will be unavailable during the break.
Problems with cash payments
The service disruption will also affect the use of payment cards provided by subsidiary Nordea Financing, such as Stockmann and TUOHI credit cards.
Nordea attributed the disruptions to upgrades and testing of its IT systems. The banking group did not provide specifics, but said the changes will improve its technology’s susceptibility to risk and disruptions.
The service break could potentially cause major inconvenience for customers even if they withdraw cash, since many merchants are no longer accepting cash payments to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection.
OP bank also making IT changes
Meanwhile OP bank customers are also being warned to prepare for an extensive service break that will begin at 10pm on Saturday and continue to around 10am on Sunday morning.
During that time, customers will not be able to make card payments and netbank services will be offline.
Additionally, online insurance services and loan applications will not be available from 7pm on Friday until 6pm on Saturday, the financial group said.