(Bloomberg) -- Nu Holdings Ltd. co-founder Cristina Junqueira apologized to Nubank customers who received an app alert telling them the bank had been liquidated, saying a software programmer inadvertently caused the faulty notification.
“Really bizarre, but that’s exactly what it was: an operational error,” Junqueira wrote late Friday in response to questions from followers on Instagram. An employee accidentally triggered a protocol designed for situations involving a bank liquidation after submitting an internal request for software changes, she said.
“The messages went to a very small portion of customers, but of course it causes some disruption,” Junqueira said. “We sincerely apologize to everyone who received the information.”
A developer inadvertently triggered a communications workflow related to the liquidation of financial institutions, Nubank said in a statement Saturday. “Because no actual institution was associated with that workflow, the company’s name appeared as the default placeholder,” according to the bank.
Bank liquidations are a sensitive topic in Brazil after the central bank dissolved Banco Master SA in November. Authorities have alleged the lender was at the center of what may be the country’s largest-ever fraud. Some smaller financial institutions were liquidated because of their ties to Banco Master.
Nubank and regulators swiftly denied that the bank was out of business after the messages went out saying the central bank had liquidated it. The company said it’s investigating the circumstances that led to the mistake and has informed affected customers that the bank is operating normally.
The incident triggered a wave of discussion on social media, with users questioning whether the message was genuine.
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