SunTrust glitch takes down online, mobile service

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SunTrust Bank’s online and mobile banking platforms are down due to a system upgrade that went awry, and the regional said it is unclear when customers will be able to access their accounts.

“Our teams are actively working to restore digital channels for our clients. We were performing a normal system upgrade that experienced technical difficulty. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience,” said Sue Mallino, the bank’s chief communications officer. “Our teams are working aggressively.”

The bank first reported its online banking systems were down on Sunday in a message posted to Twitter through its official account.

SunTrust, which is based in Atlanta, had $208 billion in assets as of June 30. It has branches in 11 states and the District of Columbia.

The bank has been directing people seeking assistance to their local branch, ATM, or to call 800-SUNTRUST.

This outage joins a recent spate of high-profile banking snafus this year due to system upgrades and technical glitches.

In January, customers at Capital One were charged multiple times for the same debit card transaction due to a software issue. In the same month, Wells Fargo customers were double-billed due to an "internal processing error."

In February, many TD Bank customers could not digitally access their accounts for more than a week despite careful planning and preparation for an upgrade by the bank.

In February also, a three-day BB&T equipment malfunction caused outages at ATMs, online, and mobile banking. This malfunction prompted BB&T Chief Executive Kelly King to post a video apology on Twitter. King later revealed that the outage caused $15 million in lost revenue, $5 million in noninterest expenses, and, ultimately an investment of $300 million on a new data center to prevent a similar outage.

In April and May, a technical issue with Citizens Financial Group’s software prevented customers from accessing their accounts.