BSP wary of outages

By CLARISSA MOI
Bank South Pacific chief executive officer Robin Fleming says longer and sustained power outages will affect the bank’s services and operations offsite.
He told The National that while larger businesses such as BSP had standby generators at its branches and head office to minimise the impact of outages on their operations and service, they were worried about longer sustained periods of power cuts.
“Longer and more sustained power outages affect our offsite ATM’s (automated teller machines) as well as Eftpos (electronic fund transfer at point of sale) merchant terminals in stores that do not have backup generators,” he said.
“When the ATMs and Eftpos are not available, customers will often travel to a branch to get cash rather than using our other channels. And travelling to a branch can be costly and time-consuming.”
Fleming said the number of customers in the queue at the ATM or for service at a branch also increased.
“Additionally power outages can affect communication, especially the more sensitive communication systems that rely on uninterrupted power supply,” he said.
“Notwithstanding that we have standby generators for every branch, in some locations around the country access to fuel for the generators can be difficult when there are prolonged outages, as fuel is not always readily available or can be difficult to source.”
He said an example was the bank staff at the Bialla branch who were shot at by criminals while travelling to obtain fuel for the generator.
“Therefore at certain times, our staff safety is also put at risk.”
Fleming said retail consumers were the most affected “as they do not have standby generators and are far more vulnerable to sustained power outages and blackouts”.
“Reliable and efficient power generation and distribution is important and prolonged power outages and load shedding affects most businesses as well as retail consumers.”