Bank of Oklahoma outage impacts customers: Are Digital Services Restored?

The Bank of Oklahoma says a major outage affected several of its systems, including mobile banking and debit card transactions.

The disruption stems from an issue with one of the bank’s service providers in Little Rock, Arkansas, which also impacted 26 other banks.

When Will Bank of Oklahoma Systems Be Restored?

The bank thought the problem with its vendor would be fixed by mid-day Thursday. ExpressBank and BOK digital banking platforms were restored Thursday night. But some continued to have issues.

On Friday, BOK Financial posted on Facebook that its digital platforms are back online.

"Bank of Oklahoma digital platforms are fully back online. Client balances should be displaying correctly although some transactions may lag. We understand this has inconvenienced our clients and our team has been working diligently to get everything caught up. We have begun reimbursing fees incorrectly assessed on accounts impacted by the outage. Debit cards should be working now but there may still be a few issues related to the delay in direct deposit processing. Individuals should watch out for "account recovery" scams circulating on social media due to the number of financial institutions impacted by this outage. BOKF will never ask for your account information on social media. If clients have concerns, our ExpressBank customer service center is available." said BOK Officials.

Related Story: Oklahoma's Own In Focus: Bank of Oklahoma Restores ExpressBank Service, Digital Banking Platforms

What Caused the Bank of Oklahoma Outage?

In a statement Thursday morning, BOK Financial said:

"We continue to work through issues related to the outage at a service provider that has impacted 26 other banks. Our teams worked through the night and continue to work to process client transactions offline while the provider resolves the issues. The outage is impacting ExpressBank, our centralized phone bank. Clients can, however, contact or visit their nearest banking center for assistance. On behalf of our clients, we are deeply frustrated with this situation and committed to making sure your transactions are processed quickly, accurately and securely when systems are back online.

How Is the Bank of Oklahoma Responding to the System Outage?

In a statement, the Bank of Oklahoma expressed frustration over the ongoing system outage affecting its clients, apologizing for the significant delays. The bank explained that the issue is rooted in a vendor system failure beyond its control, which has disrupted access to accounts and debit cards.

"We are deeply frustrated that this continues to be an issue for our clients. We know how frustrated people are and we apologize for the significant delay as we wait for the system to come back online. This is a system issue outside of our control but clients can be assured that our team is working diligently with our vendor to get it back online. We know it is stressful to not have access to your account or debit card and sincerely regret the inconvenience it has caused. 

As you can imagine, our systems work based on vendors we rely on to keep things moving on the back end. When something goes down, it’s a domino effect. We have many redundant systems in place but unfortunately, they did not remedy the situation in this case. Our teams have been working around the clock to rectify this situation, and we truly appreciate our clients’ patience," said a representative with BOK.

Will Bank Of Oklahoma Reimburse Overdraft Fees Resulting From The Outage

Cydney Williams with BOK said that the bank will reimburse all fees resulting from this outage.

"Our teams have been working hard to fix the issues stemming from the outage with our service provider—but haven’t been able to get everything taken care of yet. We will continue to work on issues through the night and apologize for the inconveniences this has caused our clients. They can rest assured that we will reimburse all fees resulting from this outage once our services are restored."

Has There Been Any Kind of Security Breach?

A representative for the Bank of Oklahoma emphasized that the outage was not caused by a cyberattack or security breach.

"Another thing we are trying to communicate to clients is that we know how this looks—but we want to assure you that we have not experienced any type of breach. Our information security team works diligently to monitor threats around the clock, and we have no evidence that this was any type of cyberattack."