Bank Pays Price for Failing to Renew Domain Name

Remembering to renew any sort of membership or subscription can be a pain, but it’s really a problem when your business model relies upon a specific and secure Internet address.

Regions Bank experienced this on Monday when, apparently, the bank failed to renew the registration for Regions.com.  As Regions’ head of ebanking explained in a YouTube video posted to the banks Facebook page on Tuesday, “the registration for Regions.com expired over the weekend and we didn’t renew. Even though we renewed it early Monday morning, it takes time for the computer servers around the world to be updated with that renewed address.”

As you can see from the Facebook screenshot dated 3:55pm on Thursday, April 18, at least one customer traveling in Mexico was still unable to access his online bank account and another is questioning the stability of the bank itself – based on the accessibility of the website.

There are simple ways to avoid this situation.  The first is to set domains, especially critical domain names, to auto-renewal.  The second is to have an outside consulting firm, like FairWinds, audit your domain name portfolio and manage renewals for you. This provides a second level of assurance that a damaging failure like the one Regions experienced won’t happen to your business.