10/01/07

By VERNON CLEMENT JONES, Senior Business Reporter

vernon@nasguard.com

Bank of The Bahamas has billed its prepaid Visa card as a trouble free way of accessing funds from almost anywhere in the world — at least anywhere Visa goes. But last week it was anything but for the estimated 10,000 customers holding those cards, many finding themselves locked out of accounts for more than 24 hours.

"I want to bring to attention the fact that the Bank of The Bahamas prepaid card system has been down for (at least 24 hours) days," a Bahamian studying in the States wrote Guardian Business last Thursday. "Many students, such as myself, rely on these cards to live."

He ultimately would have to scrounge around for cash while waiting for the Bank to resolve a technical issue, which may, in fact, be out of its control. "We rely on third party service providers," said Bank spokeswoman Tameka Forbes, suggesting her organization is now working to put protective measures in place allowing customers to access their funds even if a transfer agent goes off line.

Still, ridding the system of quirks may only be a matter of time. In 2006, Bank of The Bahamas was lauded for being the first to introduce the prepaid Visa to this country. Others have now followed that lead, offering their own cards, which essentially act like credit cards, except the money being spent belongs to the cardholder.

"We apologize to our customers," Forbes said. "We seek to provide 365 days of service to our customers, in this case with the prepaid card, we're down to 364 days of service."

Forbes may have to shave some more hours off that final number: The Bank acknowledges prepaid cardholders had been affected prior to last Wednesday. A matter of hours and not days, she said.

The Bank has recently had to act quickly in another matter involving the high-tech transfer of funds.

An Internet fraudster creating a look-alike Bank of The Bahamas Website then sent emails across the country linking recipients to the URL. The gambit was apparently an attempt to gain their banking and personal information.

It took Forbes's team less than a day to alert customers and shut down the site.

"None of our customers took the bait," she said.