An ongoing e-payments outage at the National Australia Bank (NAB) is now hitting government customers of the institution, with federal agency IP Australia forced to set up an emergency fax line to keep payments from customers to it running while a fix is found.
The Commonwealth intellectual property registry told customers on Tuesday that it would start discounting some its fees because of the glitch that has prompted the activation of an Alternate Lodgement System (ALS), saying that it is “committed to providing flexibility in light of this significant system issue to all of our customers.”
But the discount for filing payment via the ALS or the emergency fax line is likely to be cold comfort for the government and businesses, with IP Australia saying it still doesn’t have an estimate of when normal payment services will resume.
“At this stage, NAB are unable to provide an estimated timeframe for resolution. Our teams are in constant contact with NAB and we will notify customers via the IP Australia website as soon as further information is available,” a statement from IP Australia said.