# Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'?



## amtc (4 Jun 2008)

I've been fairly remiss at keeping an eye on my (2) current accounts with BOI. Basically my salary goes into one which I also use for Laser/cash spending, and mortgage/bills come out of the other. (works for me). Anyway decided to pay closer attention to accounts using online banking. (Trying to build up New York shopping fund).

Last night checked one of my accounts (the bills/mortgage account) which should have had mortgage coming out yesterday. I had transferred in sufficient to cover it plus a bit extra last Friday. This should have left a balance of €2k if the mortgage had not come out and €400 if it had. Anyway, having checked online the balance was a negative figure of over €400. Even worst going back several months in online 'customise a statement' there were incorrect plus/minus signs on transactions, wrong amounts, some transactions missing (e.g. my March mortgage payment missing in its entirety). As I use this account in such a structured manner,it's always been in credit and I pretty much follow the same transfer in/transfer out pattern every month. Checked with telephone banking and same negative balance quoted. Did panic a bit in case account in unauthorised overdraft and had bit of sleepless night.

Anyway checked this am - and all was back to normal and the expected positive balance there and mortgage taken out. Panic over.

Decided to ring BOI Banking 365 and was told that this is due to 'shadow banking'. From 10pm every night (as it was described to me) the bank's IT system goes through all accounts to 'check' them and this can result in duplicate, missing, or simply incorrect information whilst this is ongoing. This 'fixes' itself during the night. 

Bizarre? Anyway the lesson is not to check BOI after 10pm and before 9am. 

Has anyone ever heard of such an issue? 

Should I be concerned about this random account adjustment? 

Should BOI?!


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## runner (4 Jun 2008)

*Re: Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'???*

Does not sound credible to me.
If they are using 'shadow' process, should not mean the info is all over the place, just not up to date i'd imagine, but not incorrect.
If they know its consistently incorrect at certain update times, they could easily restrict access for that period rather than dish out wrong info.
Sounds like a software bug!


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## dtlyn (4 Jun 2008)

*Re: Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'???*



amtc said:


> I've been fairly remiss at keeping an eye on my (2) current accounts with BOI. Basically my salary goes into one which I also use for Laser/cash spending, and mortgage/bills come out of the other. (works for me). Anyway decided to pay closer attention to accounts using online banking. (Trying to build up New York shopping fund).
> 
> Last night checked one of my accounts (the bills/mortgage account) which should have had mortgage coming out yesterday. I had transferred in sufficient to cover it plus a bit extra last Friday. This should have left a balance of €2k if the mortgage had not come out and €400 if it had. Anyway, having checked online the balance was a negative figure of over €400. Even worst going back several months in online 'customise a statement' there were incorrect plus/minus signs on transactions, wrong amounts, some transactions missing (e.g. my March mortgage payment missing in its entirety). As I use this account in such a structured manner,it's always been in credit and I pretty much follow the same transfer in/transfer out pattern every month. Checked with telephone banking and same negative balance quoted. Did panic a bit in case account in unauthorised overdraft and had bit of sleepless night.
> 
> ...


 
I've seen this a few times with BOI late at night.

Would be fairly common to have a cleanup process and several, if not several hundred processes operating overnight involving various asset movements.

My guess is the "website" as such isn't clever enough to differenciate between interim state and the stable state of the back end system. 

Which is really really shoddy on behalf of bank of ireland considering the money they've charged me over the years. 

Bascially, front end is crap.


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## superdrog (4 Jun 2008)

*Re: Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'???*

Have found this several times , at weekends , with NIB online banking. Always corrects itself on Monday mornings though.


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## Bubbly Scot (4 Jun 2008)

*Re: Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'???*

I've come across this with BOI many times. Always at night. Payments and credits that were there one minute, gone the next and all sorts. I've never checked with them because all was right by the morning but it's given me a scare or two! Maybe I just shouldn't check the bank late at night!

Probably shouldn't admit to this but I know one of the guys that designed the original BOI online. I discovered this when I told him once how bad I thought it was!!


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## Joe1234 (4 Jun 2008)

*Re: Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'???*

I have also seen it but sometimes transactions appear twice, and transactions are missing but the balance nearly always seems correct.


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## IWONDER (4 Jun 2008)

*Re: Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'???*



runner said:


> Does not sound credible to me.
> If they are using 'shadow' process, should not mean the info is all over the place, just not up to date i'd imagine, but not incorrect.
> If they know its consistently incorrect at certain update times, they could easily restrict access for that period rather than dish out wrong info.
> Sounds like a software bug!


 
Otherwise known as shadow postings... the balances will look different while the overnight processing/ account updates are taking place, but once these are up to date transactions and balances will be correctly reflected. I would imagine that it would be impossible to make the system unavailable at 'particular' times as I am sure the run times for processing would be different every day, with variables such as the day of the month, number of transactions etc.


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## ClubMan (5 Jun 2008)

I have seen this sort of anomaly with _PTSB _and others too. Sometimes (usually around weekends or bank/public holidays) future dated transactions (e.g. debits) appear before earlier dated transactions (e.g. credits) leading to anomalous negative balances.


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## Mpsox (5 Jun 2008)

Bank of Ireland, like all the Irish banks, run updates and posting files(eg out of their cheque clearing) overnight. It sounds as if you are logging in whilst this process is underway. Don't understand why transactions would be coming in and out however, and it makes a mockery of internet banking  beinv avavilable 24/7


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## ailbhe (5 Jun 2008)

I've seen this on numerous occasions with my BOI account. Always late at night and weekends.


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## galwegian44 (5 Jun 2008)

*Re: Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'???*

Certainly not impossible IWONDER, the company I work for designed an Accounts Receivable system that did an overnight batch update with data feeds coming from USA, Europe and Asiapac. It was pretty straightforward to accomplish as we just sent out a 'closedown' warning for the 15 minutes prior to the batch run whereupon we 'locked down' the system for batch update. As soon as the final updates were completed we opened up the system again for user access; the times could vary by anything up to 30 minutes (based on transaction volume) but this was not generally a problem overnight.

Nowadays, you can certainly design systems to do these updates while users are accessing the accounts and make it transparent to them. I guess the question for BOI is would it be cost effective to do that with very little gain for the company.



IWONDER said:


> I would imagine that it would be impossible to make the system unavailable at 'particular' times as I am sure the run times for processing would be different every day, with variables such as the day of the month, number of transactions etc.


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## dtlyn (5 Jun 2008)

*Re: Bank of Ieland - 'Shadow Banking'???*



IWONDER said:


> Otherwise known as shadow postings... the balances will look different while the overnight processing/ account updates are taking place, but once these are up to date transactions and balances will be correctly reflected. I would imagine that it would be impossible to make the system unavailable at 'particular' times as I am sure the run times for processing would be different every day, with variables such as the day of the month, number of transactions etc.


 

On the contrary, I imagine it would be extremly simple to flag a posting as a shadow posting and filter it.


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## amtc (5 Jun 2008)

I really don't know (or indeed) care about the technicalities of it, but alerting customers should be an issue!

Just to be clear on a few points

- 'Real' balance and displayed balance (internet and phone) were not the same, being 1k out (if mortgage payment gone through) or 3k (if not)

- This was not just on recent transactions but there were incomplete and simply wrong transactions going back to January (as far as the website went back) with, as I said before, for example my March lodgement not showing at all.


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## Colblimp (7 Jun 2008)

You're not the only one for this to happen to, it doesn't worry me, more like intrigues me!


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## John Rambo (7 Jun 2008)

Colblimp said:


> You're not the only one for this to happen to, it doesn't worry me, more like intrigues me!


 
Unless we're being charged interest when our balances appear to be negative when in fact they're positive? Nothing would surprise me


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## 5803emma (13 Oct 2010)

*Banking 365/Laser Card Anomaly*

I wonder if anybody could shed any light on this, it has me flummoxed - 

I logged on to my Banking 365 Account on Monday evening (Oct 11th). Immediately I noticed that the day before (Sunday), €85.35 had been debited from my current account:

10OCT LASER TX 85.35

I don't know what Laser TX means but I knew I had not made any payments or online purchases with the card. It transpired my mother had picked up my Laser card by mistake at home and taken both my card and her own into town............

This is where it gets interesting, Mam did the weekly shopping in Tesco and put MY Laser card into the self-service credit/debit card payment point. She keyed in the pin for HER card and (naturally) the machine displayed an "Incorrect PIN Number" message.

Realising her mistake, Mam withdrew my Laser card and entered her own card followed by her own PIN number, obviously this worked as it was the right PIN for the right card. 

She paid for the shopping and went on her merry way. €85.35 has also been debited from her account but her account shows that the transaction occurred in Tesco.

Would very much appreciate advice!

Thanks guys


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## Janet (29 Oct 2010)

Laser TX simply means laser transaction.  I assume this has corrected itself in the meantime or that you've contacted the bank to make sure they know you hadn't used the card?


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