UMB Bank sues Convergent Outsourcing over service halt
MISSOURI, UNITED STATES — Missouri-based bank UMB Financial filed a legal case against Convergent Outsourcing after the latter abruptly withdrew its services.
The legal action, launched in the United States District Court in the Western District of Missouri, describes the service breakdown as lasting not “minutes but in days and weeks.”
UMB is suing Convergent Outsourcing—a contractor since 2018 for managing specific credit and debit card customer services—for breach of contract. Transworld Services, Inc., which acquired Convergent in 2021, is also a defendant.
UMB’s agreement with Convergent stipulated a 99.99% service availability during nights and weekends. The contract outlined key performance standards, such as answering calls within 30 seconds and instantaneously blocking any reported lost or stolen UMB cards.
Per UMB’s lawsuit, Convergent blamed the service failure on “unauthorized access” by a “threat actor” to their data centers and malware in certain IT systems. UMB alleged that Convergent failed to institute necessary safeguards to maintain service continuity during external system attacks.
The Missouri-based bank also claimed that they were forced to “expend significant manpower and internal resources to cover the customer support that was supposed to be the responsibility of Convergent,” especially amidst the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With $41.2 billion in assets as of the second quarter’s end, UMB terminated its contract with Convergent about a month after the service disruption began. The bank is seeking $596,000 related to the service outage, additional damages and legal fees.
