His first Treasury Committee appearance earlier in the year was very telling, in completely in denial about the extent of the problems, or issues/fears of their customers without even a hint of apology - I moved my banking elsewhere.
TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've got a Monzo account, which I'm a big fan of. However, Monzo have definitely had more outages and planned maintenance than the other online banking service I use, which is provided by a different UK bank. I'd consider that a reason not to make the jump.
This was true before they launched their own payment processing. They often had outages in late 2017 and earlier due to 3rd party reliability. I haven't had an outage since the current accounts have been released. No affiliation; just a user since Beta.
I've been a user since the beta too, and while they do have less outages than when they used a third party payment platform, they certainly still have more outages than my other UK bank.
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#23With a golden parachute and his pension fully intact? That is conspicuously absent from the article but it is usually the way. And no bar in being a director of another firm. The executive class are a law unto themselves. What happens to the lowly engineers pressured into cutting corners to meet an arbitrary deadline and denied the resources they needed? No such lavish rewards for them.
Even the Wells Fargo execs responsible for actually breaking laws and stealing from customers got their compensation. If you can afford a top drawer law firm then why not steal everything that isn’t nailed down? There is no rule of law once you get to this level.
> why not steal everything that isn’t nailed down?
I like that phrase a lot, I think I might use it :)
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#24With a golden parachute and his pension fully intact? That is conspicuously absent from the article but it is usually the way. And no bar in being a director of another firm. The executive class are a law unto themselves. What happens to the lowly engineers pressured into cutting corners to meet an arbitrary deadline and denied the resources they needed? No such lavish rewards for them.
>> What happens to the lowly engineers pressured into cutting corners to meet an arbitrary deadline and denied the resources they needed? No such lavish rewards for them.
What makes you think they didn't get their overtime paid well enough?
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#25Banks treat IT systems as of no value, they outsource overseas, they seriously think any developer brain is the same as any other. Banks treat development as just like call centers... they know they have to pay for warm bodies, any warm body will do.
Yeah, I've worked in a bank like that. As long as you had a CS degree, no matter what uni, no matter the grades, your experience, and if you were breathing during the interview they would hire you.
A mate of mine worked for a large bank in the UK, and his experiences were different to this. One of the managers was Oxbridge educated, so they almost exclusively hired CS grads from Oxford and Cambridge. In their mind, they were the cream of the crop, and hiring the "best" graduates meant they'd have the best IT tools. I say "almost" because he managed one team, and he went into this persons team after his projects were wound down.
He joined a team where managers ruled supreme, and while many of the developers were good, they were probably worse than devs on the other teams. Managers were given a budget, and ultimately they didn't care if software was delivered without any testing if the financial risk wasn't that great. This led to developers following orders and rushing to complete stuff with frightening bugs, deployed systems that didn't match source control, etc.
It's a different process, but it seemed to be the same outcome. They hired top-tier graduates, but taught them nothing, and put them under enough constraints that it didn't matter who they hired. They were always going to deliver absolute shit.
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#26With a golden parachute and his pension fully intact? That is conspicuously absent from the article but it is usually the way. And no bar in being a director of another firm. The executive class are a law unto themselves. What happens to the lowly engineers pressured into cutting corners to meet an arbitrary deadline and denied the resources they needed? No such lavish rewards for them.
>> What happens to the lowly engineers pressured into cutting corners to meet an arbitrary deadline and denied the resources they needed? No such lavish rewards for them. What makes you think they didn't get their overtime paid well enough?
Do you know of any developers who get paid overtime?
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#27All of the 'big' UK banks are still on similar out dated technologies as TSB was, they were the first to try to move and it hasn't paid off. I hope the other major banks a) do it better b) don't use it as an excuse never to do it
This wasn't an attempt at IT modernization. TSB had to migrate to a different system following their split from Lloyds.
Well, they didn't "have" to, it's just the Spanish parent bank didn't want to pay a competitor £100m a year to use their software system and mandated TSB move to their amazing, all new, all singing, all dancing, software platform.
Quite why that means the UK head needs to go ....
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#28All of the 'big' UK banks are still on similar out dated technologies as TSB was, they were the first to try to move and it hasn't paid off. I hope the other major banks a) do it better b) don't use it as an excuse never to do it
Which is why I switched to Monzo. Their tech is so much better and is constantly being improved. No reason not to switch really (unless you really, really need to deposit cash)
Revolut and Monzo have way more outages but are small enough to not draw the ire of regulators. You are living in a fantasy land if you think they operate with less risk than a major bank
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#29With a golden parachute and his pension fully intact? That is conspicuously absent from the article but it is usually the way. And no bar in being a director of another firm. The executive class are a law unto themselves. What happens to the lowly engineers pressured into cutting corners to meet an arbitrary deadline and denied the resources they needed? No such lavish rewards for them.
I mean, the IT platform switch was forced on him by the Spanish parent bank that owns TSB.
Re: TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is why I switched to Monzo. Their tech is so much better and is constantly being improved. No reason not to switch really (unless you really, really need to deposit cash)
I've got a Monzo account, which I'm a big fan of. However, Monzo have definitely had more outages and planned maintenance than the other online banking service I use, which is provided by a different UK bank. I'd consider that a reason not to make the jump.
Other banks and stuff have outages. Monzo just bothers to tell you about issues.
Also the longest outage I remember was when the third party card processor's server broke and it took them a few days to rebuilt it (which is pretty unnaceptable in this day and age)