Easter cash failure leaves APACS with egg on face

A full investigation has been launched into the network failure that left thousands of people without cash during the Easter break.

The Association of Payment Clearing Services (APACS), which runs the UK's direct debit and wage payment system, admitted full responsibility for what Ian Taylor, Minister of Science and Technology, called a "catastrophic failure".

An APACS spokesman told Network News: "It is our responsibility hence the large portions of humble pie we've eaten. We still don't know what caused it, but have launched a full investigation."

The Bank Automated Clearing System (BACS) will now be scrutinised by its owner - APACS - and BT to find the fault that caused the network slowdown.

BT provides the network links between firms requesting wage transactions and BACS.

These links are primarily over dial-up lines using BT's DialPlus service, but a small proportion of this week's 44,000 data files were downloaded over ISDN. Another 10 per cent were completed by the physical transfer of magnetic tape.

APACS claimed that initially the problem looked like an overload. Approximately 20 million transactions were done on the Tuesday before Easter when the problems came to light. But BACS has handled 35 million in one day before adding fuel to the mystery.