A faulty cash point dished out extra money for nearly one and a half hours to its customers in a south Wales town before bank officials spotted the problem.

The Lloyds TSB bank in Market Street, Ebbw Vale, developed a technical problem which meant that an extra �10 was handed out during every transaction.

For every transaction that was carried out, the customer got the extra money

Lloyds TSB spokeswoman

Customers who benefited from the bonus are now being written to, in the hope they will return the extra notes.

Bank officials have refused to disclose how much extra money was handed out but have said that the cash point was turned off as soon as the problem was noticed.

"It was taken out of service and the engineers came to fix it," said a spokeswoman.

"This was the only machine affected in the town.

"For every transaction that was carried out, the customer got the extra money."

The bank is now appealing to people who used the busy machine on Friday to give the money back.

"We know which customers received the additional money because of the cash point's records.

"We are relying on people's honesty to give the money back to us.

Rare event

"We have written to the customers to tell them about what happened and are asking them to return the extra money."

The bank, which has two branches in the town, said that engineers have identified the technical problem in the machine.

The spokeswoman said that the problem of cash points giving out too much money happened very rarely.

"This type of thing doesn't happen very often, its usually once very five years or so," she added.