CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank (Bahamas) customers countrywide were unable to access their money for a portion of yesterday after the bank's system suffered a failure.
Angry customers said they were unable to access funds from the bank's automatic banking machines (ABMs), from other banks' ABMs, or from CIBC FirstCaribbean's tellers within its branches.
The bank's Managing Director Marie Rodland-Allen said that the situation resulted from a "power outage" and all ABMs were "up and running" by 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon.
Asked how long the system was down for, and whether there would be an investigation into the failure or possible compensation to customers, Rodland-Allen did not comment further.
The system failure came days after bad news for the bank, in the form of reports that it recorded a net loss of $174 million in The Bahamas over the past six months. Incremental loan losses of $75 million represented over half of the total loan losses experienced by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) in its Caribbean unit as a whole.
The bank noted, however, that had it not recorded these loan losses and a $115 million non-cash goodwill impairment charge in The Bahamas, it would have generated $16 million in net income for the period.
"I am certain the bank will be distressed with the (system failure) coming almost immediately after their announcement," said an industry insider, speaking on condition of anonymity.
One customer, speaking on condition of anonymity yesterday, said: "It surprised me because I would have thought the bank would have had contingencies against such things. Here it is, I badly needed to make a withdrawal and instead I'm being told that I cannot get my money. It really upset me. I understand that sometimes computer systems fail, but there must be fail-safes to ensure that people can still gain access to their money."

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian