When things go wrong in banks, the fallout for customers usually happens behind closed doors, in the privacy of people's homes, in businesses and in branches.
This week though an IT glitch at Bank of Ireland led to a very public fallout.
Those queuing were not doing so out of any fear of losing their money.
On the contrary, they were hoping to get their hands on what they thought was free cash.
The problems began for the bank earlier in the day, when an outage led to its online banking and mobile app services going offline.
This alone was difficulty enough for the bank, provoking the ire of customers now massively dependent on the seamless operation of digital banking.
But an even bigger problem for the lender then began to emerge when some bright sparks figured out that they could transfer more money than they had in their accounts to their other external accounts, such as Revolut.
Keen to get their hands on what they thought was money for nothing before someone came looking for it back, they then took it out from ATMs – hence the queues.
Fortunately for Bank of Ireland, the amount of cash people could transfer and withdraw seemed to be limited to around €1,000.
But those customers who were euphoric about what they thought was a free money bonanza, were soon brought back down to earth with a crash.
What's more the bank and experts warned that if this situation was not quickly rectified by the "borrower", they risked damaging their all-important credit rating.
The concept of plucky customers chancing their arm by trying to "get one over on the greedy banks", does have an element of ironic Irish humour to it.
But below this surface of populist rhetoric, the situation is a very serious one for Bank of Ireland and by extension its customers when it comes to faith in and reliance on its systems.
List of IT and related problems
Because this was far from being the only occasion in recent years that the bank has suffered IT and related data system problems that have impacted its most valuable asset – its customers.
Less than two months ago in June, its app was down for nearly a full day, forcing it to extend branch opening hours that day and open more than 90 branches the next day, which was a Saturday, as well as increase its phone customer service staffing.
In April a blunder led to tens of thousands of mortgage holders not having their monthly loan performance updates filed to the Central Credit Register.
A month earlier, it was fined €750,000 by the Data Protection Commission (DPC) over 10 data breaches involving its Banking365 online banking system.
In May of the previous year it was fined €463,000, also by the DPC, for data breaches affecting more than 50,000 customers.
December 2021 saw the bank slapped with a €24.5m fine by the Central Bank for a series of regulatory breaches related to its IT systems and related internal controls.
In November of 2019, its ATMs went offline along with its online banking and mobile app services for most of a day, a day after it had experienced problems with its payment system.
And the list of goes on.
"Banks can't have it both ways. They can't push customers inexorably towards digital banking and away from cash and branches, but then have systems that are so unreliable and prone to failure, that they prompt people to queue at ATMs in the hope of bagging some free money."
€1.4bn transformation programme
All this is despite significant investment by the bank into its tech platforms.
In total the lender has funnelled €1.4 billion into a transformation programme in recent years, focused not solely but largely on tech related areas.
The projects included infrastructure and network upgrades, improving its payment system, replacing its debit card system, a new enhanced mobile app, better cyber security, data investments, application programme interfaces (APIs)s, new wealth and insurance platforms and a new mortgage platform.
Yet clearly it has not yet done enough, with the result that customers continue to suffer.
'We fell well below the standards our customers expect'
"We fell well below the standards our customers expect of us and I apologise sincerely for this," he said.
"Banking is based on reputation and trust. We have damaged this with our customers and wider society. We are working to put things right."
All the Irish banks, including Bank of Ireland, remain on their road to redemption in the eyes of the public, following their multi-billion euro taxpayer bailouts during the financial crash and the subsequent tracker mortgage scandal, which shattered trust.
Episodes like the one this week do little to advance their cause and only serve to further damage Bank of Ireland’s reputation and the reputations of banks in general.
'Serious and pervasive' risks
But Bank of Ireland and other lenders will perhaps face an even bigger problem arising out of this latest mess-up.
As far back as 2017 the Central Bank questioned whether all banks were paying sufficient attention to "serious and pervasive" risks arising from technology failures and security breaches.
Since then, the banks have come under increasing regulatory scrutiny around their technology and systems, with the Bank of Ireland fine in 2021 proof that the regulator was prepared to come down hard to make its point.
Tuesday’s outage also led the Minister for Finance Michael McGrath to express his concerns about the issue and to ask the Central Bank to establish a full account of what happened, why and what will be done to avoid a repeat.
Already the regulator has begun investigating and while it is early days, enforcement action cannot be ruled out.
Because ultimately all banks cannot have it both ways.
They cannot push customers inexorably towards digital banking and away from cash and branches, as they rack up huge profits.
But then have systems that are so unreliable and prone to failure, that they prompt people to queue at ATMs in the hope of bagging some free money.
