Bank of Ireland fined €24.5 million for IT shortcomings

The Bank of Ireland has been fined €24.5 million by the Irish Central Bank for persistent shortcomings in its IT systems. According to the Central Bank, the problems were only fully resolved after ten years.

One such problem was the lack of a working system in the event of an IT failure, reports The Irish Times. According to the Central Bank, the BOI has been addressed several times in the past about the lack of a working backup system. The lender had already been informed of its shortcomings in 2008, but decided to do something about it only in 2015. Four years later, the BOI’s IT services met the requirements.

“Had a serious outage during that ten-year period, the BOI might not have been able to perform its core services, such as the payment service, with adverse consequences for the bank’s customers and the financial system,” CB chief Seána Cunningham told The Irish Times.

The Bank of Ireland recognizes five violations identified by the Central Bank. The bank also invested 1.15 billion euros in its IT systems between 2015 and 2019. The initial fine of 35 million euros has therefore been reduced to 24.5 million euros.