UNI Financial left Desjardins for its own banking platform; members were locked out

UNI Financial Cooperation, also known as Caisse populaire and headquartered in Caraquet, New Brunswick, serves about 180,000 customers. After years of relying on Desjardins Group for its online banking platform, CEO Robert Moreau told CBC the company decided to launch its own. About 155,000 customers were supposed to move to it on 6 July 2023.

CBC reported on 12 July that for the third day in a row customers across the province had problems: some could not reach accounts online and some had bank cards that did not work at point-of-sale machines. One Fredericton customer said she had zero access to her account for four days and could not make or receive transfers or check her balance. Another had received the mailed instructions without the access code she needed.

Moreau said not every customer was affected and 'most transactions' were going through properly, and that UNI was learning about some problems only as clients came forward. He gave no timeline for a fix. The credit union opened branches over the weekend and extended hours through the week, and he promised deposits, withdrawals and payments would be completed for customers who came in.

Customers locked out of online accounts for three to four days and counting, bank cards failing at point-of-sale, and extended branch hours as stopgap.

UNI moved from Desjardins' platform to its own system and cut over about 155,000 customers around the same date.

Cards and online access broke for customers at once, so problems showed up in branches and on the phone, not just in the app.

Some customers' mailed access codes were missing, and UNI said it learned of problems only as customers reported them.

The company offered no timeline for a fix while the disruption entered its third day.

Moving a whole customer base in one date means any gap shows up for everyone; keep a way to reach accounts and send access codes before cutting over.

As of 12 July 2023 UNI was working through the problems case by case with extended branch hours, and CBC reported that some customers had by then been helped in branches. No fix date or compensation had been announced in the article.