Oh dear! And Ms Leach has just left: how are you going to cover that unfolding story?
RBS and NatWest FAIL downs services across UK
Thirsty NatWest and RBS customers across the UK are finding it difficult to get the last round in tonight, as the banks' systems have failed. The megabork, which began at around 9:30pm, has taken down cash machines, online banking and telephone banking for the majority of its customers across the UK. "We are aware of the …
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Wednesday 6th March 2013 23:29 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: In other news...
The War On Cash hasn't worked in Sweden so far....
And you know what that is all about. Not convenience but surveillance.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 09:47 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Bloodbath of the Contractors
Don't be stupid! IT staff are a wasteful drain on resources. As well as often being an unsightly addition to any staff canteen - the pulchritude of which can always be added to by hiring more HT and marketing babes... Computers work because of the magic pixies inside of them, the IT staff just lie about all the work they claim to be doing. All you need is to think happy thoughts, and all your computers will work all the time. Managers whose computers fail are simply not good enough at positive thinking - and should also be fired!
Regards,
Your CEO
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Thursday 7th March 2013 10:15 GMT Mark Pawelek
Re: Bloodbath of the Contractors
When a business person thinks about software all they see it the UI. They think the UI is it. A hole-in-the-wall has a pretty simple UI so the software must be really simple, right?. They can out source the whole lot to some guy in Vietnam, hire a business analyst, a project manager, a cool babe to do the translation, and a product owner and still save loads of doh left over for their bonuses.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 16:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Bloodbath of the Contractors
When a business person thinks about software all they see it the UI.
That's how my current company got lumbered with a commercial version control system. The GUI looks amazing to a management or business type, but the underlying toolset is a pile of crap - despite costing roughly $1,000 per seat.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 00:29 GMT andreas koch
In the beancounter office:
Beancounter1: "You know this IT-department that we have?"
BC2: "Those guys who play with their computers all day and steal the bandwidth from my cat-pix downloads? Yep, know them."
BC1: "Do they actually make money for the company?"
BC2: "Not as far as I can tell, they only ever want some to spend on their toys."
BC1: "If we make most of them redundant, couldn't we put that towards a slightly bigger bonus? My wife's Audi Q7 is already over 10 month old, you know."
BC2: " Grand idea, old chap. Let's do that! And let's outsource the leftovers to some other company. There's all kinds of good deals to be had, if you get an interpreter to do the negotiations. And maybe an extra week in Bangkok on the firm. For the negotiations, of course."
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Thursday 7th March 2013 00:47 GMT M Gale
Again?
I've just recently been attending a lecture as part of the Mainframe Computing module, courtesy of a guy who I won't name here, but was actually quite good at giving presentations. He went into a little detail about the last RBS cock-up and how it happened.
Wonder if it's the same "let's outsource the work to someone on the other side of the world who'll do it for 50p/hour" reason as the last time? Apparently RBS started looking for more local talent after that.. how far have they gotten with that?
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Thursday 7th March 2013 00:59 GMT JassMan
Another excuse to give themselves a bonus
By not giving customers access to their own money, they get to make more money on the interst. The only only surprising thing is that they haven't embezzled all the funds, bought themselves some third world country and buggered off to live there. Especially now the EC is limiting their bonuses to a paltry 2 times their salary. FFS how come any of them can justify a bonus for anything in the last 15 years.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 02:09 GMT Peter Jones 2
FAIL felt as far as Oregon
This explains why I couldn't pay for the petrol this morning. Luckily I had enough Yanqui play-money scattered around my pockets to convince the guy that I would come back when I found a cashpoint, and wasn't trying to do a runner.
This is the second time I have regretted staying with RBS/Natwest. Time to move, I think. Question is, where?
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Thursday 7th March 2013 12:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: FAIL felt as far as Oregon
"First Direct are excellent"
Sure , as long as you never want to discuss a complicated financial problem face to face and are happy doing everything over the internet or with someone on the phone in thailand. Personally I'd sooner use a bank that has high street branches.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 10:38 GMT Bodhi
Re: FAIL felt as far as Oregon
I wouldn;t bother with the Co-op, I've been with them for about 5 years now and they've been useless. No way of checking available funds online, and when you do check it at a cash machine it's usually half a day behind, instant transfers take about 20 minutes to reach my account, you can't transfer between accounts from the app and staff are generally feckless.
Back to one of the big banks I go, one of the benefits of having shareholders, is they actually provide a decent service to go with it.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 09:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: FAIL felt as far as Oregon
First direct here .... after the last major outage at the time thinking maybe 'lightning won't strike in the same place twice' , and then thinking that this analogy might not as such apply.
I feel very sorry for RBS staff who were really great to deal with after moving from my previous bank due to different circumstances. That aside I did think that the RBS response to the last 'glitch' did seem to be a triumph of style over substance.
Looking like the suggestions are First Direct or Coop...........
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Thursday 7th March 2013 19:25 GMT John Smith 19
Re: FAIL felt as far as Oregon
How about going smaller.
There most famous customer P. Lazorou.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 09:48 GMT Paw Bokenfohr
Re: FAIL felt as far as Oregon
Never had an issue with either First Direct or Smile.
But I would recommend First Direct, because Smile (and the Co-Op) require you to use a two-factor authentication system with your debit card to be able to do any transactions through your online banking. Not convenient if you're not at home, or the battery's flat, or you're in a hurry. Actually not convenient at all.
First Direct try to get you to install Trusteer Rapport ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EimZQgt7WPg )......... But, it's optional, so, not as heinous as the card reader from Smile.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 08:59 GMT Maverick
fixed my arse!
as of 8:45am their on line banking is completely down
been with NatWest since 1973, dropped their credit cards 2 years ago for a much better product
guess it's time to move current account - you maybe shocked to learn that they don't have 1p of our savings / investments / pensions etc = best decision we ever made
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Thursday 7th March 2013 09:02 GMT Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
What could go wrong.....
Oooooohhhh!!!!!! Let's
get rid ofengage in workstack redeployment for thousands of IT staff and "offshore" their jobs to India, what could go wrong......I don't know if this was reported widely in the UK but due to an "Under collection error" at Ulster Bank in Ireland meant that over 1,300 of the bank’s mortgage customers face a bill of around €41M, about €31K per customer, after they were under-charged in their repayments over a number of years.
But do remember that none of this is due to off-shoring/out sourcing as all systems are managed from the UK, presumabaly from Stephen Hester's and Mike Errington's offices.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 09:09 GMT John Smith 19
Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
Bottom line you are resource. It's your cash they tap to lend to people at substantially above the BoE base rate (which your current account will see barely a penny from).
Anyone who knows the UK magazine "Money Facts" will know just how similar most accounts are. There are some gems buy you'll have to dig deep.
UK high street banks are much of a muchness. They do not reward loyalty.
Why should you reward their greed and incompetence?
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Thursday 7th March 2013 09:53 GMT Thomas 4
Re: Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
I'm with Natwest at the moment (haven't had any card issues but that's due to spending most of the week ill in bed) but I think this recent fuck up has confirmed that we can expect more outages in future.
So what alternatives are there? Is the Co-op any good, or a similar set up that doesn't have a bunch of money grubbing CEOs?
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Thursday 7th March 2013 10:00 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
Sadly NatWest give me a 0.2% off my mortgage for having my current account with them. And I have to have a current account in order to keep it.
Of course there's nothing stopping me from having another current account, and just bunging a standing order of £1,000 a month through the NatWest one and back out again. If this carries on, I guess I'll have to consider that.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 14:27 GMT Primus Secundus Tertius
Re: Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
For the last twenty years I have been doing that with Barclays and Lloyds. One of them screwed up a direct debit to the tune of £1000, so most of my money has since been with the other.
A staff cockup, not a computer fault.
Yes, I'm being a bit vague here. It could have been either bank making the first mistake.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 18:55 GMT John Smith 19
Re: Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
"Sadly NatWest give me a 0.2% off my mortgage for having my current account with them. And I have to have a current account in order to keep it."
Which is good if their mortgage rate was good to begin with.
Otherwise if its been a few years since you started paying it might be worth hunting up a copy of Money Facts (unless you're an IFA you'll probably need a major library) to see how it compares with the others.
There is a lot of competition in this market and while much of it is very similar there are I'm told better deals to be found.
Just a thought.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 10:31 GMT Lee D
Re: Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
I don't get people who have savings accounts. Put £10,000 into the hands of a third-party who will gamble it (some of it "guaranteed", of course) to make themselves some more money, don't touch it for a year, and maybe - just maybe - you might get £10,200 back. Hell, if you get a really good rate, maybe £10,500. Then that extra gets taxed. Take into account inflation and you're lucky if you break even (current savings rates are around 2-2.5%, current inflation at about 3%). And if you touch it more than they allow you, you'll make nothing back at all (i.e. a loss of value).
If you told someone that, if they lent you a tenner, you would give them a tenner and 20 pence back next year, they'd tell you where to go.
And yet, go a penny over and the bank will "fine" you £25 (because what you want to do to people who can't pay for things is make it harder for them to pay anything at all, if you're a bank), plus interest for the privilege without bothering to consult you first (find me a bank account where I *CAN'T* go overdrawn at all, ever, in any way, and transactions just get refused when I have insufficient money - they don't exist).
Last time they did it to me, several years ago now, I arranged an hour's meeting with the branch manager and just wasted their time. Doesn't get me my money back, but - as I replied when the manager asked what I thought I achieved by wasting his time: "How much does a branch manager earn per hour? Is it more or less than £25? <at this point, he wisely didn't answer less because I would have stayed longer> How much will it cost you if we ALL do this?". Met the same guy managing another branch the next year - he was much more helpful and friendly that time.
I have a bank account. Every month, my wages go in, and the end of the every month it reads zero (with a small safety margin). It costs me nothing to have it, even though I'd be happy to pay for reasonable banking (they do, of course, offer services like cards and cheque clearance that I understand they have to pay for - but until they are reasonable about things like cheque clearance times, "automatic overdrafts", etc. then they can stick it - hell, where's my damn text to tell me my card has been used, where and how much, like every other European bank does for free, or is fraud non-existent and me knowing exactly how much I have just THAT much of a burden to them?). I have a credit card - it's prepay and the pittance per month it costs is worth the infrastructure and convenience of using it. I don't have a savings account. I don't have other products. Why would I?
Hell, when I went to the banks years ago (at the height of the mortgage market) to buy a house, they literally laughed when they heard how much I earned (which, to be honest, was a decent wage which made me even more annoyed). Belittle your customers to their faces, that's customer service. We walked out. We walked to the shop next door that didn't laugh, chased our custom, gave us a mortgage same-day and we paid them every penny, on-time, every month for years during all the mortgage crisis, and sold the house for profit a few years later paying off the complete mortgage + interest.
I dislike banks, so I avoid using them wherever possible. Where I have to use them, I make sure they are getting as little benefit from my custom as absolutely possible. When they are unreasonable with me, I cost them money, empty my account, take my account elsewhere and - later, when they are just on the verge of charging me for it - close my account.
Loyalty? You earn my loyalty.
Money? I earn my money. If you want it, you have to earn something for me (interest pittances don't count).
Custom? You earn my custom.
And when you do, I'm happy to pay reasonably for the service. They could have had ten times the money they've had from me over the years just by being reasonable.
They can't even charge people for their bank accounts, despite years of hard-sell. That's what banking services are worth to the man on the street. For businesses, it's different and banks are a necessary evil, but what make you think people WANT to use you?
I stopped caring about banks years ago when they stopped caring about me, and "inertia" on my account lasts only so long as you stop screwing me over (which would happen in a second if I wasn't vigilant). There's plenty of banks and, if it really came to it, all I actually need is a pre-pay credit card. I could have my wages put on it quite easily, it would pay for every service I require, and it would cost less than any other method (I don't use or carry cash - I literally have an empty wallet 99.99% of the year - and withdrawing cash is the only part that pre-pay cards really charge you for). It's only the hassle associated with not having a bank account that keeps mine open (e.g. Direct Debit discounts, etc.).
Why treat banking different to any other industry? Treat me like the scum of the earth and I'll act like it with you and cost you the most money I can.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 11:36 GMT P_0
Re: Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
I wasn't trying to get information to go cat burgling, I just wondered where he puts his money, since he empties his bank account every month. Either he goes on an extraordinary bender down the pub or he saves it somewhere that isn't a bank, i.e. bonds, stock market, both of which could have better returns than the paltry interest on a bank account, but with the downside of reduced liquidity.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 12:48 GMT Santa from Exeter
Re: Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
'And yet, go a penny over and the bank will "fine" you £25 (because what you want to do to people who can't pay for things is make it harder for them to pay anything at all, if you're a bank), plus interest for the privilege without bothering to consult you first'
Santander go one better than that. They pay out to take you over your limit (and charge you £25 for it), then reclaim the payment, because you are now over your limit (and charge you £25 for doing so), Then charge you £5 for being over your limit for a day!
' (find me a bank account where I *CAN'T* go overdrawn at all, ever, in any way, and transactions just get refused when I have insufficient money - they don't exist).'
Actually, they do exist. The majority of them are for those with bad credit scores, so they charge you up to £15 a month for the privilege of having a bank account!
Halifax Livecash, however, doesn't do credit checks and will also accept discharged bankrupts
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Thursday 7th March 2013 19:06 GMT John Smith 19
Re: Most people stay with their bank in the UK due to inertia.
"I stopped caring about banks years ago when they stopped caring about me, and "inertia" on my account lasts only so long as you stop screwing me over (which would happen in a second if I wasn't vigilant). There's plenty of banks and, if it really came to it, all I actually need is a pre-pay credit card. I could have my wages put on it quite easily, it would pay for every service I require, and it would cost less than any other method (I don't use or carry cash - I literally have an empty wallet 99.99% of the year - and withdrawing cash is the only part that pre-pay cards really charge you for). It's only the hassle associated with not having a bank account that keeps mine open (e.g. Direct Debit discounts, etc.)."
Well done. Banks built their reputation in the 19th century.
IMHO it has been a very long time since they deserved it.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 19:18 GMT John Smith 19
Re: It's about time
"That the consumer banks realised that they are, really, an IT operation. The computer systems are not a cost centre, not something boring that interferes with real banking: the computer system is the bank these days."
I'd love to find out if there are any major businesses that could run for any serious length of time (1 day to 1 week to 1 month) without their core systems. I mean total removal, not a few systems still working.
I don't think there are many and I have no doubt that major banks are not on the list.
I just wonder how well they realize it.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 11:34 GMT JimmyPage
Not the best thing for RBS ...
another inducement for the customers with money (you know, they ones they need) to switch, leaving behind the customers they don't need ...
For anyone changing, I'd suggest Nationwide. It's not a bank, and in 3 years (since Halifax ****ed us off) they've got nothing wrong.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 12:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
Clocks Outage for All banks
Does anyone know how this stuff works? I got a cab a couple of halloweens back and EVERY ATM for EVERY bank didn't work. There literally were people going from atm to atm to see if their cards worked. It was around 3am.
Was a bloody pain the arse. No charging was available, nothing. I had to pay the cabby in 20p coins from the change jar.
Lloyds tried to say it was "testing" but essentially the banking industry said "well no one uses their cards at 3am" who cares. And it's not like that was the first year the clocks changed.
The banks are assholes, it's amazing how hard they make it to get YOUR money from them
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Thursday 7th March 2013 12:40 GMT RichardPH
Re: Clocks Outage for All banks
Err, no. All the other banks' cashpoints connect to your bank's computer. If your bank's computer is AWOL it won't make any difference whose terminal you try to access from.
I'm amazed so few people here have no redundancy in their banking arrangements. I bet you'd all advocate some redundancy in the banks' computer systems!
Have several current accounts, circulate £1k around each month, keep a float in each to cater for these emergencies. If one happens to have a good offer on, shift more money there. For instance, Santander 123 at the moment, 3% interest up to £20k - better than any savings account.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 15:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Clocks Outage for All banks
OK, don't want to point out the obvious, but all Banks usually shut down transactions over the Spring and Autumn clock change (BST/GMT) typically 01:00 to 03:00 on the last Sunday in March and October - and if the last Sunday in October is the 31st?
RBS Group normally have a warning message on all ATMs for two weeks before the planned outage.
Doesn't explain other recent outages and I'm not trying to defend any bank - they're all as bad as each other.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 12:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
I had a card payment failure this morning....
...at about 01.03am which should have paid for my next month's mobile phone usage. I repeated it using the same card as before mid-morning and it went through.
Since my card is not associated with RBS I can only assume that my mobile provider were affected by this, in 18 months or so I've never seen a payment failure before when paying them.
Fortunately it doesn't seem to have cost me much additional money in the few hours I was using data without it being covered under my allowance.
The icon is for RBS, someone needs to hose them down with a flamethrower.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 12:35 GMT Hayden Clark
Nationwide are ok now, but....
Nationwide's systems are a home-grown bunch of mainframe cruft. .. so it stays working all the time. They are about to do a big-bang switchover to an outsourced SAP solution. That has such a high probability of failure it's not funny. I don't know what I will do for a bank then.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 13:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Nationwide are ok now, but....
A lot of customers are already on the SAP system and its working fine so far. Its not some entirely outsourced service, but some parts of support are. They are fairly risk averse and spent a lot of time and effort on this project so I think they are as prepared as they can be. Stuff will still go wrong I expect but they will handle it well - better than RBS currently does I would think.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 13:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Redundancy people!
No-one working in IT should have been unduly bothered by this glitch. Instead just roll your eyes, mutter something like "not again" then fail-over to the backup credit card from a different company using a different payment processor. And one with embossed numbers so you can still use the clunk-click devices retailers keep under the desk in case of a total system failure, EMP etc...
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Thursday 7th March 2013 20:29 GMT eJ2095
Oddly Visa Transactions
Done my shopping on Monday at Asda came to 170 quid but there was a problem with the till so i hae to do card again.
How ever it marked my account for too lots of 170 which was a pain as it buggered up my bank account .
So had ti ring bank, who said ring asda who said ring bank who said ring asda. (go around in circles)
In the end had to go back to the sodding store and get them to ring some one called streamline to get the extra 170 reversed otherwise would have to wait 7 working days.
Amazing that soon as i moaned it was done with in 30 mins.
But what a slow crappy system