Leap year software glitch closes fuel pumps across New Zealand

WELLINGTON - New Zealand petrol stations reported nationwide outages at self-service pumps on Feb 29, apparently because their software is unable to deal with the date of Feb 29.

In the capital Wellington, some stations closed completely, leaving forecourts empty and customers confronted with signs reading “Nationwide Payment Outage – Site Unavailable”.

Fuel suppliers Z Energy, Allied Petroleum and Gull said automated pumps were down across the country, leaving only staffed stations able to process payments.

“We think it’s the inability of the payment software to cope with the leap year,” said Gull spokesman Julien Leys. “That’s our understanding, but we’re waiting for confirmation from our technology provider.”

Gull’s rival Allied Petroleum reported a similar issue but added that “manned service stations (forecourts with a shop on site)” were slowly coming back online.  

New Zealand is one of the first countries in the world to greet the day and therefore experience Feb 29, the extra day added every four years to account for the Earth taking slightly longer than 365 days to orbit the Sun.

“We are aware of an issue with our third-party payment system that is impacting companies across New Zealand today, including Z Energy,” Z said in a statement on its website.

“We are working closely with our third-party payment provider to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”

Mr John Scott, chief executive of Invenco Group, which provides the payment software solution, said the system had stopped working due to a “leap year glitch”.

This was now fixed and just needed to be rolled out to affected fuel pumps around the country, Mr Scott said.

Mr Scott said this was just an issue with the New Zealand code, and while Invenco was unsure how it had happened, it would investigate the glitch over the coming days. BLOOMBERG, AFP, REUTERS