Sometimes a point is so obvious you can barely be bothered to make it. Today is one of those days.

I’ve reproduced the email from CAF Bank in full below, and frankly it reminds me of certain press conferences from the days of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars where the Americans would try to avoid admitting they’d accidentally shot someone on their own side.

Both the charities I sit on the board of will be planning a move to another bank within the next 12 months, and can you blame us?

It’s such a shame this comes on the heels of finally getting Open Banking, but clearly they have put their trust in entirely the wrong “global technology partner”.

Dear customer,

As you may have seen, CAF Bank’s online banking service has been unavailable for several periods over the past week. Unfortunately, the online service will continue to be unavailable until further notice. 

I am very sorry about this. I know this will cause disruption, frustration and concern so I want to explain what has happened and our work to resolve it. 

I wrote to you on Friday (24 July) regarding suspicious activity on a small number of accounts. We caught this within minutes. We have contacted customers whose accounts were affected by this attempted fraudulent activity. 

We immediately launched an investigation alongside external experts. Through that investigation, we identified a previously unknown vulnerability in how some third-party software connects to the online banking portal. The core bank is not affected, which means that money is safe and secure in accounts. However, this does mean we need to make changes to the online service. 

I want to reassure you that there is no ongoing threat to the integrity of the Bank itself and our network is not compromised. 

CAF Bank’s online service is supported by a global technology partner which has deployed specialist teams to fix this issue. Those teams are working around the clock to ensure the online service can be restored. While we are mindful of the impact this has on our customers and want to do this as soon as possible, we cannot restore access to the online service until we are assured the issue is resolved. We have been keeping our regulators informed about the issue and the work we are doing to return to a normal service.

All payments authorised online over the weekend before we took the service down are being paid this morning (27 July). 

Banking while the online service is unavailable 

We know many of you will be trying to do your payroll this week. We will still be able to help on the phone and we are adding extra teams onto our helpline to support. We do expect much higher call volumes than usual so I would ask your Account Contact or an authorised Signatory to please call only if they need to make time-sensitive payments such as payroll.  

I will get back in touch with you to let you know when online banking is available and we will update our Help Centre. We will also contact you directly if you need to take further action relating to your account.  

I hope this explains why we have made the difficult decisions we have. I want to say how sorry I am again and to thank you for your patience while we safely restore the online service.  

If you have any questions or concerns, please ask your Account Contact or an authorised Signatory to get in touch with our customer service team.

Thank you for banking with us.

Alison Taylor
CEO, CAF Bank and CAF Financial Solutions Limited