back to article Nationwide Building Society's Faster Payments turn into Slower Payments for 2022

The UK's Nationwide Building Society has started the new year with a bork as customers found payments to and from accounts stalled as 2022 arrived. Problems began this morning as worried customers contacted Nationwide to check what had become of incoming and outgoing payments. The building society's status page confirmed that …

  1. katrinab Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Any reason why payment volumes today would be any higher than a normal first working day of the month?

    1. TeeCee Gold badge

      Bank Holidays, year end, xmas, new year, yadda yadda.

      Everywhere I've been, any finance or banking systems go hell for leather at this time. If you are a multinational or have an overseas reporting obligation, the problem is compounded by the fact you have to do your annual financials for everywhere on the planet apart from the UK[1].

      [1] Note for shifty foreign types: Our government likes to collectively put its feet up and get blind drunk over the holiday period. To facilitate this they have cunningly scheduled the financial and tax year to begin and end in April, after the hangover wears off.

      1. Dr Paul Taylor

        cunningly scheduled the financial and tax year

        Just as the width of our railway lines (and probably everyone else's) is derived from that of Roman carts (go to Pompeii to see the original ruts), so our tax year starts with the old Roman year on 26 March (Julian calendar). To make sure no-one lost out on rent, interest, etc, this became 6 April when adopted the Gregorean calendar, about 170 years after the southern half of Europe.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge
          Trollface

          Re: cunningly scheduled the financial and tax year

          Going back to the Julian calendar will be the next Brexit win.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: cunningly scheduled the financial and tax year

            Going back to the Julian calendar will be the only Brexit win.

      2. druck Silver badge

        The start of the calendar and fiscal year always used to be on the 25th March, which became 5th of April under the Gregorian calendar, and we then adopted this new fangled idea of starting the calendar year on the 1st of January, but the fiscal year has stayed on the 5th of April.

    2. druck Silver badge

      A lot of bills normally go out from my account on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd of the month, as all those were a weekend or bank holiday, they've all hit my bank account today, and I've become considerably less well off very quickly.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    where do these PR life-forms come from?

    According to an oxygen thief at Nationwide "incoming and outgoing payments are delayed at the moment," but "everything else is working normally.". Apart from processing incoming and outgoing payments, what other purpose does a bank account have?

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Flame

      Re: where do these PR life-forms come from?

      Transferring money from customer accounts to their own account for charges and interest.

      That is the main purpose of a bank.

      1. R Soul Silver badge

        Re: where do these PR life-forms come from?

        I would have thought those charges and interest were outgoing payments. They certainly are on my bank account.

        What are the chances those payments to Nationwide got delayed?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Third time in two weeks

    Not sure why the story misses a larger point, this is not an isolated issue due to high volumes they had two failures in December as well.

    21st December - Payments in/out failed for the whole day, finally started working late in evening with delays. Was still slow on 22nd.

    31st December - Payments in/out failed again for most of the day.

    Now 4th January - Payments in failed.

    These issues are causing a lot of pain for people who need the money coming into their account to be there on the day it is supposed to be and to be able to pay bills. Nationwide have left people with no money for gas/electricity/food as they don't have spare money to allow for pay/benefits to be late.

    In my case I needed to pay a small family company for some work they had completed, thankfully I managed to sort that out from another bank account, otherwise I'd have left that company without the money to pay their suppliers/staff before Christmas.

    At the current time Nationwide seem to have a broken system and be struggling to meet their requirements as a bank.

    1. simonlb Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Third time in two weeks

      I was aware of the issues on the 21st December and into the 22nd, but not the other ones. Very unusual for Nationwide.

      And they are a building society, not a bank, so their requirements are different.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Third time in two weeks

        I nearly put they are a Building Society but offer banking services and for domestic services are a "clearing bank" in their own right. They use HSBC for some International stuff such as Swift.

        Nationwide are also the only Building Society who are members of Faster Payments Service, all others are banks.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Third time in two weeks

          "They use HSBC for some International stuff such as Swift."

          Had an issue with Nationwide about 5 years back when I went to move money to them from a personal account in another EU country - couldn't make the transfer. This was during the time of SEPA (Single European Payment Area) introduction. Turned out the bank in the other EU country had just introduced the requirement for BIC codes for transfers (which SEPA required them to do so). A transfer from the same EU bank to Nationwide had worked fine about 2 months previously as that was before the SEPA rollout started across Europe.

          Talked to Nationwide and it turns out that they had not yet applied for a BIC code - they said they were not required to do so (by SEPA) for another 6 months and so they'd wait right up until the deadline as they didn't do many international transfers.

          So ended up having to send the money to a different UK bank that worked fine.

          Their attitude certainly gave the impression of them being a bit Mickey Mouse.

      2. katrinab Silver badge

        Re: Third time in two weeks

        They are "bank" in the sense that they offer banking services in addition to the savings and mortgage services that other building societies offer. I don't think there are any other building societies that do that. Yes they are legally registered as a Building Society because they have members rather than shareholders.

        1. CountCadaver Silver badge

          Re: Third time in two weeks

          and thats about the only link to the concept of a building society they have, the board appears to be hellbent on turning nationwide into a bank by a thousand small creeping changes...

          Sure as hades their renumeration isn't "for the benefit of members" and the AGM policy is "don't vote then its assumed you support the board", which is frankly skullduggery of the worst sort

  4. Steve Foster
    FAIL

    3rd Incident

    Note that this is the 3rd time in quick succession (1st just before Xmas, 2nd last week) that Nationwide has had processing delays with "faster" [sic] payments.

    EDIT: AC just beat me to it...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 3rd Incident

      Not surprised. Did a contract there not long ago. Very cavalier approach to security. Possibly cos the network team seem to be running security there. Saw things that would have got people fired at a proper bank. After what we saw all my team closed their Nationwide accounts.

      1. Mishak Silver badge

        After what we saw all my team closed their Nationwide accounts

        Anyone try to report anything to the regulator?

  5. Fonant

    Starling Bank is good

    As above. FWIW.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Starling Bank is good

      I use Starling as a secondary current account, and they're not bad, but I find their app a bit annoying for making payments or managing SOs: they've tried to cram everything on one screen, making it fiddly and confusing to edit fields, whereas Nationwide's app has larger text and scrolls vertically through the form layout as needed, making it easier and a more logical layout/flow (although their use of a card reader device for 2FA gets tiresome quickly).

      But the thing that worries me most about app-only banks like Starling is that you're in trouble if your phone gets damaged, lost, or stolen, leaving you with no way to manage your account until you get it fixed or replaced. I can understand a bank not having physical branches, but not having standard web banking to provide alternative means of access is a risk too far to ever be my main account.

  6. mark l 2 Silver badge

    I still don't understand why banks computers have to stop processing transactions on bank holidays. It seems outdated in the modern world of online commerce that we are following rules written in the 19th century when banks were staffed by humans doing all the transactions. Its not like they have to pay it overtime rates to a server working on its day off.

    1. Mishak Silver badge

      Opening hours

      I don't get bank's opening hours either.

      My local Natwest is now closed on Saturday, the only day they were previously open when anyone who worked could get in to talk to a person. Not that it really matters, as they no longer have anyone in the branches who knows about "products" or that is able to make any decisions. Very much a case of customers being an inconvenience...

      Still, not as bad as the local HSBC. I was helping a voluntary body look at banking options, and they said someone would have to drive 45 minutes to another branch if there was interested in opening an account. Went with an account with Starling in the end - the application took a matter of minutes online, didn't require any company or directors details to be entered, and the account was active within a few days.

  7. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    Elsewhere on Reg is a hagiographic article telling geeks that they now rule the planet. Meanwhile, Nationwide isn't making payments and Santander made them twice. This is not a good sign for our chicken-head biting overlords.

  8. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Failsafe on a new system?

    Only looking at this from a very long way away but it does look like some kind of failsafe kicked in on a system that has a built-in throttle. You see similar things in exchanges nowadays as a way to handle potentially problematic transactions: sometimes it's better to bring things to halt than let run uncontrolled, especially if they could be the target of some kind of attack.

    Moving money between banks, while now very fast, is not friction-free as it's a classic two-stage transaction.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cause

    Would anyone like to speculate on the cause? My guess is that on previous days they tipped into record high volumes, causing some kind of intermittent error/race condition. They then paused processing pending investigation on earlier outage days. Then started throttling the queue (as a fix) which has causing the delays today and just before Xmas?

    1. low_resolution_foxxes

      Re: Cause

      Were they trying to reverse the payments from Santander...?

  10. CountCadaver Silver badge

    Nationwide, a bank by another name

    Claim to be a mutual yet pay the board several million pounds in direct salary and several millions more in "performance payments" and "expenses". All while slashing interest paid, removing perks and jacking up charges all over. The regulator should put a stop to this or demutualise them as it appears they are only a building society for the marketing puffery and potential other benefits (taxation perhaps???)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nationwide, a bank by another name

      I agree that the board are paid ridiculously large amounts, but that's sadly endemic in pretty much all building societies and banks (I really can't see how anyone can justify a salary of more than about £200K, there's a lot to be said for the rule of thumb that there should only be a factor of 10 between the lowest and highest pay scales in any organisation).

      But while base rates are low, most savings accounts everywhere are paying pretty dismal rates just now. At least the "Start to Save" instant access account (with a regular prize draw as a bonus) and their regular saving account pay pretty decent rates of interest in the current environment. You'll not get many decent savings accounts from the banks!

      (Not an apologist for Nationwide, they do have their faults (like hiking their previously reasonable overdraft interest rates to almost 40%, like (almost) every bank), but they do still have some things in their favour.)

  11. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Really?

    "Members can continue to use their cards to pay for goods and services, access the Internet Bank and Banking App and withdraw cash from ATMs."

    Well, considering it's the first working day after the biggest spending spree of the year, some of their "members" may not have got their wages on time nad have nothing to spend anyway, Will they be compensating people who's wages arrived late while Standing Orders and Direct Debits went out on time, causing them to go overdrawn?

  12. firu toddo
    Facepalm

    Not a failure....

    Just delaying their success.

    Good job I wasn't desperate for my money. As others have said, Starling is the future, at least for me.

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