Banks act to ease credit card customers' concerns following NAB faults

St George Bank and Bank of Queensland are among the lenders that have been working to ensure disruption to their customers is minimised following the problems that have affected payments at National Australia Bank.

Australian banking firms have been taking steps to minimise the fallout of the technical problems seen by National Australia Bank (NAB) in recent days.

NAB's services are returning to normal after it was hit by problems in its transactions system, which caused payments for some bank account holders - such as those using Oz brand credit cards - to be delayed or duplicated.

The collapse had a knock-on effect at many other Aussie credit providers and national newspaper the Australian reports many have been "working overtime" to reduce the impact on its customers.

Among the steps some have taken are enabling credit card holders to use the products to access funds without having to pay fees or interest, as well as giving those who have been left short of cash - for example due to delayed wage payments - the ability to extend their overdraft.

St George Bank said in a statement that it "is working closely with our impacted customers on a case-by-case basis to ensure that they are not unfairly penalised due to the delay of payments from NAB", adding one aim is to make sure they "do not pay any unnecessary fees or charges".

Bank of Queensland also noted it has responded to the issue by employing "a number of emergency measures to help our customers through this difficult time", such as offering emergency funds that are equivalent to that of customers' regular pay.

Today (November 30th), NAB said the "majority" of transactions and payments that were delayed as a result of the problems have been finalised, while account balances should also be up-to-date.

It apologised for any "customer distress" it may have caused during the issues with the Australian banking system, which, the news agency reports, was the result of human error, as a corrupted file uploaded by an employee is said to have triggered the disruption.