RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
theregister.co.uk
RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
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Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#2I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for any, so I've been eating processed shite out of the freezer like a student for four days, and it's making me feel a bit poorly, not to mention the freezer is starting to look a little bare. I haven't had breakfast for days, and I have about two meals left if I stretch it. Surely this isn't acceptable in 2012?
Perhaps a little less seriously than the effect on my health from a lack of fresh food, I was paid my monthly salary yesterday, and that hasn't appeared in my account. I'm assuming that it'll appear in the next few days, but if it doesn't, I can't purchase the car I'd arranged to buy on Friday. It's all a massive balls-up and affecting my life in so many random ways.
Can any British readers recommend any alternative banks? I'm based in the centre of Sheffield, so I have the choice of pretty much all of them.
Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#3Some more information about the tech behind the failings here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/rbs_natwest_what_wen...
TLDR: Looks like a failure in their CA-7 batch processing systems, which compounded so they weren't able to back out. Lots of the experts in RBS's implementation of CA-7 have been made redundant, and been replaced with offshore-expertise
I'm not going to question the proficiency of the offshore talent, however, I'm sure most on HN would agree that there's great value with legacy systems in not getting rid of the people who have been working on them for the last 20 years, and know all the idiosyncrasies and foibles.
Lots of the UK banks still use highly complex decades old main-frame based systems which interact with hundreds of other systems. It feels to me like the systems have got so complex, that its hard to see a way of replacing or rewriting and simplifying them.
Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#4I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for any, so I've been eating processed shite out of the freezer like a student for four days, and it's making me feel a bit poorly, not to mention the freezer is starting to look a little bare. I haven't had breakfast for days, and I have about two meals left if…
I'm 22, so you might say I haven't experienced the full spectrum of banking products, but for what I have used I really like HSBC. Always quick to answer the phone, and maybe not so specific to their service levels but they were one of the few banks to not take bailout cash if I remember rightly.
They have their First Direct offering too, which gives you a higher interest rate for less face-time. You still get to use parts of the HSBC branches too.
Hope all ends well for you sir!
Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#5I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for any, so I've been eating processed shite out of the freezer like a student for four days, and it's making me feel a bit poorly, not to mention the freezer is starting to look a little bare. I haven't had breakfast for days, and I have about two meals left if…
I've been with the Nationwide for years now, and never had a problem with them. Being a building society they're a bit less profit driven, though I don't know if anything can protect against offshore cost-cutting exercises in this day and age :/
Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#6Some more information about the tech behind the failings here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/rbs_natwest_what_wen... TLDR: Looks like a failure in their CA-7 batch processing systems, which compounded so they weren't able to back out. Lots of the experts in RBS's implementation of CA-7 have been made redundant, and been replaced with offshore-expertise I'm not going to question the proficiency of the offsho…
Specifically, it looks like a manual error during a deployment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/25/how-natwest...
"It seems whoever made the update to CA-7 managed to delete or corrupt the files which hold the schedule for the overnight jobs, so they did not run, or ran incorrectly"
Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#7I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for any, so I've been eating processed shite out of the freezer like a student for four days, and it's making me feel a bit poorly, not to mention the freezer is starting to look a little bare. I haven't had breakfast for days, and I have about two meals left if…
The Co-Op? (Although rumour has it that they're going to completely replace their computer systems either this year or early next year so that might be a case of jumping from one basket case to another!)
RBS appears to have fouled up the scheduling of their overnight batch run in a way that meant large tranches of transactions simply weren't going through the system. Fixing the problem has taken days (which may be down to poorly managed outsourcing) and it's then taking even more time to catch up with the backlog of unregistered transactions, because they can only fit so many extra into the overnight run.
If you've got a pay slip or something, then get yourself to an RBS branch and they'll give you cash to tide you over in the meantime. Don't starve yourself!
Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#8I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for any, so I've been eating processed shite out of the freezer like a student for four days, and it's making me feel a bit poorly, not to mention the freezer is starting to look a little bare. I haven't had breakfast for days, and I have about two meals left if…
I've used a few and ultimately ended up at HSBC for my business and personal account. Haven't had any problems so far (touch wood) and been pretty impressed so far with the service.
If I remember correctly, they were one of the few banks to come out the back of the banking crisis largely unscathed. Convinced a few friends to move too and have had good feedback so far (but ymmv as usual).
Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#9I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for any, so I've been eating processed shite out of the freezer like a student for four days, and it's making me feel a bit poorly, not to mention the freezer is starting to look a little bare. I haven't had breakfast for days, and I have about two meals left if…
+1 for First Direct, but don't take my word for it: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-a...
Re: RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally
#10I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for any, so I've been eating processed shite out of the freezer like a student for four days, and it's making me feel a bit poorly, not to mention the freezer is starting to look a little bare. I haven't had breakfast for days, and I have about two meals left if…
I moved from Natwest to First Direct a couple of months ago, and have had a great experience so far.
Their online banking isn't quite so nice as Natwest's, but that's more than made up for by the amazing phone service. I've had to call a couple of times (once to replace a lost card), and almost instantly been put through to someone who can solve my problem.