The accounts are run for the Post Office by the US bank J P Morgan

BBC Radio 4's Money Box was broadcast on Saturday, 4 September, 2004 at 1204 BST.

The programme was repeated on Sunday, 5 September, 2004 at 2102 BST.

The government is having urgent talks with the Post Office following a technical blunder which affected 190,000 pensioners.

Double payments were made to 25,000 people, and the rest were left with nothing when the new "Direct Payment" system went down for several hours.

The problems affected pensioners who had switched from order books - which are being phased out - to the new Post Office Card Account.

News of the problem will be a blow to government plans to move all benefit and pension payments to the new electronic payment system.

We were joined by Sally West, Incomes Policy Officer of Age Concern, who spoke of her concerns for pensioners.

And we took those concerns the minister in charge of the new system, Chris Pond.

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