BOV vows to restore 3rd party payments by Monday

Bank of Valletta’s (BOV) third-party payment services outside the eurozone are being reactivated from its branch network and BOV expects to make them fully operational by February 25, Monday, the bank announced.

In the meantime, BOV said it is working to also reinstate these payments through Internet Banking. BOV’s eurozone payments were activated last week and are operational through all BOV channels in the normal manner, according to an earlier announcement.

After days of BOV employees working on restoring services as well as clearing up backlogs, the bank says its operations are nearing “normal”, according to the press release. “Payments of salaries, social benefits and pensions, both local and international, are proceeding as usual and the bulk payment functionality, on the Bank’s internet banking, has also been reinstated,” the press statement adds.

On 13 February, BOV shut down services after they learnt that the bank’s systems had been compromised in a cyberattack that falsified transfers valued at €13m. The bank restored some services on 14 February morning.

By 18 February BOV restored SEPA payment services. At the same time, news reports suggested the sources of the attack were unknown, and it was difficult to say when the funds would be restored, and whether they could be restored in their entirety.

The incident is currently the subject of a Criminal Inquiry before the Court of Magistrates of Malta, the BOV statement says.