Yesterday, CIBC reported a "systems issue" that prevented customers from logging in to their accounts online for the entire business day. CIBC, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, is one of the five biggest banks in Canada. Yesterday just happened to be the day that people receiving welfare, unemployment benefits, social insurance payments (like American social security), Canada Pension payments, and disability payments landed in the accounts of recipients.

Customers could still use ATMs and Point of Sale features but were unable to log into their accounts to check balances, transfer money, or make online payments. The sentiments of normally patient Canadians online were … tense.

Save

The system was restored around 8 pm last night but that wasn't soon enough for people who wanted to pay their bills by the due date or make business transactions.

Meanwhile, CIBC wants to move everything online

Ironically, this online banking catastrophe occurred a day after Victor Dodig, the CEO of CIBC, predicted that nearly all transactions would soon be taking place online.

…almost all transactions will soon be conducted remotely, rather than in person, as customers continue to take more of their business and daily lives online.

"We see continued migration of clients to do transactions remotely," CIBC CEO Victor Dodig said Wednesday during his bank's institutional investor conference in Montreal. "You're seeing 87 per cent of transactions now being done remotely. And we think it's going to get to 96 per cent over the next four to five years." (source)

But perhaps this migration has more to do with CIBC closing branches. Physical locations where you can walk in and see a teller are going the way of the Canadian penny. (It's no longer being made because production costs were 1.6 cents per coin.)