Republic Bank Ltd continues to own up to a credit-card processing error that affected many merchants, especially PriceSmart, and is urging the public against directing negative sentiments toward its clients.

In a release on Friday, RBL said it understands the technical challenges experienced with the bank’s credit-card processing system had an unintended, negative impact on local customers and some of its credit-card merchants, including PriceSmart Trinidad.

RBL president and managing director Nigel Baptiste said the negative sentiments directed to PriceSmart are "regrettable."

“While it is understandable that impacted customers are concerned about this development, the level of negative sentiment directed towards PriceSmart is regrettable since the matter was not of their making. We once again want to reassure the public that the matter was corrected and all steps have been taken to prevent re-occurrence,” Baptiste said.

The bank again apologised to affected customers, merchants, and the local banking sector who faced reputational damage as a result of the error. It reiterated that between August 14 and September 6, credit-card holders of the local banking network who used their cards at this group of merchants were affected by their card transactions inadvertently being processed as US-dollar transactions instead of TT-dollar transactions.

It said that in a media release on October 17, the bank had informed the public the issue had been rectified, and was working closely with other local banks to ensure all legitimately affected customers were reimbursed.

"The bank wishes to assure all affected cardholders that this unfortunate outcome was not as a result of any activities carried out by any of our merchants," it said.

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