Metro Bank’s Failed Re-Launch
This weekend was the relaunch of Commerce Bank/Harrisburg into Metro Bank – an event that I have been waiting for for a number of months now (even though I live in NJ, don’t have any accounts at Commerce Bank/Harrisburg and never visit their branches since I’m never in the Harrisburg area. I’m so fascinated by this switch to Metro Bank because I love the original Commerce Bank (the one that was purchased by TD Bank) and I think that Vernon Hill is a bank marketing/branding genius. I couldn’t want to see what Metro Bank was to become.
Apparently, it’s become a huge failure and embarrassment.
Within minutes of my post yesterday I received a number of comments, describing some problems – not just minor ones mind you, major problems for people who do their banking with Metro Bank. We’re talking about debit cards suddenly being canceled for no reason and with no warning, scheduled bill payments lost, bill payments being credited to accounts more than once, direct deposit paychecks not appearing and worst of all – customer service wait times of an hour, and then when you do get a hold of someone – no one has any idea of whats going on.
I even found a blog post where someone described his personal experiences in detail – and it was one problem after another – even the Updates he posted later in the day were additional problems!
I’m really surprised the mainstream press hasn’t picked up on this story yet.
Whats so crazy about this is how a bank can go from full working order on Friday, to being in complete in disarray by Saturday – its not like it was two banks being merged into one (understandable – but still – unacceptable), the employees are the same, the physical banks are the same – it was a complete computer meltdown. Not only that, but there was absolutely no warning that the website would be down on Saturday, and the general public had no idea that there could be issues like this.
Sounds like this is all due to their computer systems being switched to fiserve - an announcement made in mid-January of 2009 when Gary L. Nalbandian, Chairman, President and CEO of Commerce Bank/Harrisburg-Metrobank said
“Our challenge was to identify a partner that could provide a complete solution — from core system hosting to item processing, from electronic banking to data warehousing — with a conversion process that enables us to uphold our renowned level of customer service,”
It seems as though the fiserve conversion occured on Friday after business close and was expected to be finished on Saturday or Sunday, but just ended up being a disaster.
Hmm.. Looks like fiserve and MetroBank have a huge PR issue on their hands now. Which is unfortunate for both companies – because fiserve seems to have done this type of conversion before (looking at their news announcements shows a lot of similar deals to this one) and MetroBank is known for their customer service.
Hopefully Metro Bank will be able to recover quickly, and wont lose too many customers, because issues such as losing paychecks, over debiting accounts, and shutting off debit cards without warning is just unacceptable.
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- Metro Bank Responds : floor9.com | June 18, 2009
Read my 
Like you, I was very pleased with Commerce Bank. Short of having branches open 24×7, they came as to perfection as any bank I’ve ever come across. That empire of good customer service was obliterated this past weekend. Any of the ongoing issues are bad enough on their own: Missing funds, canceled ATM cards, an unreachable website, 75-minute hold times, employees who don’t know what’s happening, and so on. But put them all together and “nightmare” doesn’t even come close. Worse, the sheer apathy coming from the employees — not to mention the silence from upper management — is inexcusable.
RIP Commerce Bank: 1985 – 2009
here here dave… rip commerce i just held on hold for 45 min to told by a little csr that there as nothing she could do, to call back in a hour. give my a break.
I have banked with Commerce all my life, only account I ever had and I am 35 now. So, 15+ years. This website is the icing on the cake for most of us. I inquired as to if this was going to stay the site, and got a reply that just said “This is our new banking site. some enhancements are coming in the near future.” That was it, well…I would just say forget the enhancements because changing the name and stuff was going to be a so called “better” experience and stuff. That is all I heard from them and then this! Come on, it looks horrible. The experience is more than I can take. I am going to be touring local banks to find one with a better web experience since I do practically all my banking and inquiries online. I am really sad about all this because switching banks can be a pain in the @ss…but I don’t think I can enjoy their site in any way. Every time I go to check on things in my account I am confused and can’t understand why they don’t show everything like before and it seems there isn’t anything to it. I know that is a big transition, but if you can’t play with the big boys…then you can play with the kids because most people I talk to hate this new site. It is probably George Bush’s fault this happend I guess (joke). Oh, well…I wonder how they will fix the PR issue they now have? They have never fixed my issues to my satisfaction when they were commerce the past 2 years and I am only one customer. I wonder if this happens often, because this seems like a really bad downward spiral I have seem with them over the past few years. Very sad to say the least.