BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary’s central bank on Saturday asked local lenders to immediately start reimbursing customers for erroneous fees imposed by Apple Inc’s (NASDAQ:) mobile payment service earlier this week that affected hundreds of thousands of accounts in Hungary.
The central bank said some 780,000 false charges worth a combined more than 2 billion forints ($5.43 million) had been made on Wednesday evening, adding that the incident was due to a technical glitch at Apple’s online store’s international bank card partner.
The statement from the Hungarian National Bank represents the first official indication of the scale of the problem. The bank did not name Apple’s card partner.
The central bank, which is also responsible for regulating the financial sector, said the problem was not the result of a cyberattack.
The Swiss National Bank said it was “not satisfied with the pace of the current measures and calls on financial service providers to immediately begin repaying the amounts owed to customers.”
She added that the procrastination of Hungarian banks was “completely unacceptable” and also called on lenders to start compensating customers who had not yet applied for compensation.
Apple could not immediately be reached for comment.
The central bank said it would launch an in-depth investigation to find out whether Hungarian banks’ handling of complaints and compensation following the incident was in line with current regulations.
($1 = 368.58 forints)