TSB boss: We know everything's working, you just can't see that In the latest update from TSB about its continued web wobbles, the British bank has told us that while it knows everything is working, punters might not realise that fact because... internet banking still isn't entirely working. Paul Pester, chief exec, said in a statement: The challenge we are facing at the moment is that …
1. Throwing his IT staff under the bus live on TV
2. Repeatedly issuing overly optimistic ETAs that his company then failed to meet
3. Laughably claiming everything is fine...While I haven't been able to login for 6 days.
Paul Pester is an absolute bloody cretin, and unfit to run any company larger than a cornershop.
This morning Pester has sent for a crack squad of IBMers as if they're going to rock up and magically wave a wand to fix it all, especially after the layoffs, and is now blaming his provider (i.e. the parent company, Sabadell).
So I guess he's decided it's best to go down in flames with lots of glorious publicity showing how hard he tried.
If it were me with an account I'd be going to a TSB and not leaving till I have £1000 in cash and a banker's draft in my hand, then I'd cross the road to another bank.
Paul Pester is an absolute bloody cretin, and unfit to run any company larger than a cornershop.
Running a cornershop is actually pretty demanding - there's no fall back, no administrative or professional support, long hours, customers whining that they can get Product X for 40% less in Asda. Anything and everything is down to the owner to organise and make happen, likewise any problems, nobody else to solve them. All commercial risks are with the owner, and they take the flak from customers when other people let them down.
I can't think of a less suitable person to run a corner shop than a former McKinsey consultant and banker. And I really can't see how his doctorate in mathematical physics qualifies him either for banking or running a corner shop.
And anyway...what have you got against cornershop customers that you'd want Pester to be in charge of one?
"And I really can't see how his doctorate in mathematical physics qualifies him either for banking..,"
No, I can't see why someone skilled in maths would be any good at banking, either. We really should have more classics graduates running our banks.
(And if we'd built more particle colliders, launched more space probes and funded more physics professors, then maybe fewer post-docs would have gone over to the dark side and used their higher-order maths and statistics skills to engineer the great financial crisis. Who'd've thought cash doesn't behave quite like electrons?)
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I read an article some time back (Cringley perhaps?), the premise of which was that there are many companies around who are IT companies but don't realise it.
This particularly applies to banks and quite frankly if you view them as being an IT company and they screw up on the IT, you wouldn't look to use them again.
I think I read that same thing.
Wasn't it based on one company who sold financial products and were floundering but realised that their primary focus should be IT and switched internal focus so that they were an it company who sold financial products and did really well?
I'd be interested to read it again now if anyone has a link.
I don't think it's the same company, but once worked for a payment processing house who had decided that they wanted to become a 'fintech' company (ie. IT), changed names to reflect this, were doing technical things with their payment terminals that the hardware vendor didn't even think possible etc.
Last I saw they were doing pretty well and had gotten bought out, the founder made a nice little earner.
AC just in case.
If I had a TSB account it's days would be numbered.
I would not trust them any longer for internet or mobile banking and to have a lying sod announcing that a 'few' customers are affected when over half according to some reports are affected would be the nail in the coffin.
I banked with them in the early '90s and quit when they went into Lloyds, Sabadell who owns them now is notorious for high charges even when your account has thousands in it.
Banked with their GB successor Lloyds TSB who screwed me over when they realised I had no money.
Then banked with their NI successor First Trust (TSBNI + AIB) who were a bit inept (why did I have to carry a separate card for ATMs and a debit card?), when they closed the local branches I closed account (and First Trust managed to balls up one of my direct debits by transposing a digit) and moved to a Leicester based bank who themselves transitioned to Santander (who had minor teething problems when moving to their systems, nothing on the scale of TSB though)
A useful tip:
If your debit card is working, you can use monzo.me or Starling Settleup to get your money out, or maybe both, as they have daily transaction limits.
TSB was my first current account when I started my first job. I don't use it any more, but I kept the account with some money in as an emergency back-up. I figured it would be better to have that somewhere else, in case an emergency happens before they sort things out.
So on one master card
19 Apr 2018 AN ADJUSTMENT TO YOUR ACCOUNT -75.00
19 Apr 2018 AN ADJUSTMENT TO YOUR ACCOUNT 75.00
Which they must of done because I did not.
Then I transfer 60 from my current account the the credit card, it leaves my current account and does not turn up on the credit card!
I can confirm this account will be shut shortly and a new bank found.
Very unhappy bunny
Not being a TSB customer and having not been a Java dev for a decade or so, it did make me smile seeing all the bean-based error messages people have posted. And as to the array index out of bounds one: Priceless! What on earth does the non-IT person think when they see this sort of nonsense? My honest and deepest sympathies if you are a customer, though.
There’s no rigour in software development any more - so this sort of thing is going to happen more and more and more.
It's obviously "working" functionally but not meeting the capacity or performance requirements. It's still a fail but a different category of fail. I've been operational architect on a number of big projects and it's usually the performance and stress test that gets pushed to last (no point doing it before the code is finalised, says the PM) and then dropped to meet a deadline. I've no involvement with TSB (now or ever) but I'm sorry for both the customers and, to a lesser extent, the ops guys.
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