BMO clients face outages in Canada, U.S. following data centre fire alarm

Banking clients on both sides of the border have reported issues accessing Bank of Montreal (BMO) services Thursday.

In a statement to CTV News, the bank said the service disruption was caused by a “false fire alarm” pulled at a BMO data centre overnight.

Third-party monitoring site Downdetector showed spikes in user reports for outages, jumping from a baseline of at or near zero during the daytime Wednesday to nearly 200 in the 10 p.m. hour, dipping overnight and rising again from 5 a.m. onward. Issues appear to be affecting both Canadian and U.S. clients.

As of 8:30 a.m. Thursday, BMO’s website features a banner reading that clients “may not be able to access online banking right now, because of a technical problem,” and assuring clients that the bank is working on a solution.

In the BMO statement, a spokesperson wrote that work is ongoing to restore service, but in the meantime, clients can access services via the bank’s ATM network.  

This is a breaking news story. Check back for more information.

With files from CP24.com’s Joshua Freeman and Courtney Heels