Ulster Bank Reveals IT Glitch Compensation

Ulster Bank has released details of the compensation it will pay to customers affected by the summer's computer meltdown.

Anyone left out-of-pocket because of the IT problems will have their expenses reimbursed, along with an additional 20% up to a maximum of £100 on top of these.

Each customer that had to visit a branch more frequently than usual during the problems will receive an extra £20.

And all personal and small business customers will be credited with an automatic one-off payment, the value of which depends on the total amount in the account.

It has already begun the process of refunding fees, charges and interest incurred, and stressed that customers' credit rating would not be permanently affected.

A computer glitch in June and July caused havoc for customers of the bank, affecting around 600,000 people.

The bank has set aside £27.7m (35m euros) to cover the compensation costs - but said this amount could rise.

"Given the scale of the impact on our customers, we expect that there will be additional costs over the coming months as we continue the process of putting things right," it said in a statement.

The chief executive of Ulster Bank, Jim Brown, apologised to customers.

"Once again, I apologise unreservedly to our customers and customers of other banks for the inconvenience this has caused and thank them for their patience as we worked to resolve this issue," he said.

"We recognise that we have work to do to restore our customers’ trust in us and we believe that this is the first step in that direction."

Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS.L - news) , which owns Ulster Bank and Natwest, has estimated the costs across the entire group will be around £125m (156m euros).

The Belfast-based bank has over 1.9million customers, 90 branches in Northern Ireland and 146 branches in the Republic of Ireland (Xetra: A0Q8L3 - news) .