Computer bug hits all Crédit Agricole customers in France

A computer 'bug' hit all Crédit Agricole customers in France during the morning of October 23, meaning they were not able to log on to either internet services or through the mobile phone 'Ma Banque' app.

Call centre staff told concerned customers that even their own computers were not working.

“It is a problem on our side, nothing to do with you or your equipment,” a call centre responder told a journalist from The Connexion.

“It is something which has hit us all over the country and we are working to try and fix it and hope that it will be OK this afternoon.”

He did not know the cause of the bug but said customers should not worry about the safety of their money held in the bank’s accounts.

Crédit Agricole SA’s press office said they were not aware of the problem but would look into it.

Crédit Agricole’s retail network is made up of local banks with a mutual (co-operative) status, which used to all run their own computer networks.

However around five years ago they agreed that the Crédit Agricole Group, which is made up of the local banks and a listed bank called Crédit Agricole SA, should have one computer network, under the leadership of Crédit Agricole SA.

Merging the various local computer networks into the new system was done smoothly, and today’s incident seems to be the first major problem the united network has faced.

There have subsequently been numerous warnings from French government cyber-security services about attacks on French businesses, both from criminal gangs and hacker networks seemingly linked to Russia.

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