Customers angered by chaos following Bank Handlowy, Citibank merger

Crowds of angry Handlobank customers stormed branches of the bank on Friday, demanding to know why they were unable to access their accounts through ATMs and the Interent. The problem followed the merger of Bank Handlowy (BH) and Citibank (Citi), and was caused by glitches in the computer systems of Handlobank, which is BH's retail arm, and Citi. Commenting on the problematic weekend at Handlobank, which is now withdrawing from the retail market and moving all its customers to Citibank, BH spokeswoman Iwona Ryniewicz explained the conversion of the systems on April 21 and 22 had been carried out successfully, but problems had been caused by the customers themselves, who flocked in vast numbers to the ATMs to check their accounts and thus created a bottleneck in the system. The bank claims there should be no problems with accessing accounts this week. 'So far, the quality of service both at Handlobank and Citi has been good and it will continue to be good,' said Ryniewicz. The Gazeta Wyborcza reports that several Handlobank customers have called the bank, threatening to close their accounts. (Gazeta Wyborcza, April 28-29, p.25) J.K.