RBS-NatWest bank meltdown rolls on: Chaos to hit millions
all weekend, customers STILL can't get w... عرض المزيدRBS-NatWest bank meltdown rolls on: Chaos to hit millions
all weekend, customers STILL can't get wages -
and it may last until next week
By ED MONK FOR THISISMONEY.CO.UK and ANDREW OXLADE
Updated: 09:29 GMT, 23 June 2012
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The computer meltdown at NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland, which left millions
unable to access their salaries, could stretch into next week it emerged
today.
The banking group will open 1,000 branches on Sunday, from 9am to midday, as millions
of people are unable to receive money or pay bills because of
an ongoing technical crash.
Doors were also kept open until 7pm on Friday and
until 6pm today because a huge number of transactions failed to go through properly.
The problems with account access now rank as one of the worst
technical failures at a British bank.
Enlarge NatWest online banking meltdown: Millions of customers unable to move money or pay bills as accounts freeze
Up to 12 million people have been affected by the
major computer error which was triggered when a software upgrade was being installed to
the payment system.
They have resolved the 'underlying problem'
but it could be early next week before all the problems have been dealt with and all payments catch up.
More...
NatWest banking meltdown: Millions of customers
unable to move money or pay bills as accounts freeze and
wage payments fail to arrive
CUSTOMER FURY: The NatWest 'feedback' site
Can I force NatWest or RBS to cover late payment penalties or extra costs caused by its banking meltdown?
Susan Allen, customer services director
for RBS-NatWest retail, told ITV News it was difficult
to say exactly when all the problems would be resolved.
The systems failure, which the company now says began on Tuesday, meant that payments due to be made on Wednesday night, ready for
Thursday, did not appear in account balances.
As a result, some customers were blocked
from taking money out of cash machines, while others had internet supermarket food deliveries stopped after payments were
rejected.
CAN I FORCE NATWEST TO COVER ANY PENALTIES?
The crisis-hit bank has so far refused to confirm specifically whether it will compensate customers if
they are hit with late payment fees from third parties -
through no fault of their own.
Our banking correspondent explains customers' rights when it comes
to getting justice from financial services firms.
READ MORE: Can I force NatWest to cover late payment penalties?
Some people could not use debit cards at tills,
including hotel check-out desks, airports and petrol stations.
Some customers were able to access their money by 4pm Thursday but problems have persisted and customers continued to report being unable
to access their cash this morning. It is unclear whether the
problem that stopped payments due on Wednesday night
have also blocked payments due for last night.
A statement on a NatWest feedback website said today: 'Unfortunately we are once again experiencing technical issues with our
systems and account balances have not updated properly
overnight. This means where money has gone into a customers account,
there may be a delay in it appearing on their balance.
'We can assure our customers that this problem is strictly of a technical nature and
we continue to work hard to resolve this.
'We also recognise this is an unacceptable inconvenience for our customers, for which we apologise.'
The company also confirmed the problems were not the result of an external attack on its systems.
RBS, which conducts retail banking under the NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and
UlsterBank brands, kept 1,000 of its branches open until
7pm last night to let people take out some money, and
opened them earlier today, in order to assist customers.
At 8am today, an RBS spokesman said the bank was preparing
a new statement to update customers.
Anger: A NatWest feedback website showed customers continuing to report being unable to access their money
at 8am on Friday.
There was confusion yesterday with customers reporting problems that were not connected
to payments not being made.
IS THIS BRITAIN'S WORST BANKING SERVICES FAILURE?
Online banking services occasionally go down and customers find themselves locked out,
typically for a few hours.
But it's very rare that these problems last for longer than that.
Last summer, Tesco Bank saw a huge backlash particularly on the reader
comments on this website, when a technical glitch locked
customers out of accounts for up four days.
But the full extent of those delays affected only 2,500 people.
The meltdown at RBS-NatWest has blighted up to 12million people.
Tesco promised to reimburse people who could prove they lost out financially as a result of the confusion. Let's hope RBS offers the same response.
Unfortunately for customers of British banks these sort out of failures will become more common - see
below.
For example, staff in one branch in West London told customers they
should only use the bank's own ATMs to guarantee being able to get money out.
The branch had closed its doors with only two members
of staff outside telling customers that they would not know until tomorrow when services would be restored.
Elsewhere, customer were so alarmed yesterday that they queued at branches to insist that staff hand over all the cash in their current accounts.
After hours of silence, the bank issued a message on its website in mid-afternoon stating:
‘This is an unacceptable inconvenience for our customers for which we
apologise.'
There are fears that many thousands of customers could be hit
with penalty charges because regular standing orders and direct debits, including rent and mortgage payments, were also affected.
Some are worried they could lose family holidays because the final instalment of their payments were not transferred as
expected. House purchase transfer payments were also stalled by the computer failure.
The collapse triggered a string of comment on Twitter from customers, with some suggesting the NatWest debacle would be similar to the
meltdown predicted for Greece if the country
crashed out of the euro.
Mother-of-two Lisa Browne, who was sick and off work,
tried to get Tesco to deliver a weekly food shop to her home so she could feed
her children. However, the store called to say it would not accept the order because her NatWest bank
card had been declined.
FIRST-TIME BUYER UNABLE TO BUY HOME BECAUSE OF BANK ERROR
First-time buyer Milley Colley, 27, was unable to move into her new two-bedroom flat yesterday
because NatWest had not transferred the money.
She attempted to send the funds to her solicitor - two days before the problems officially begun -
but they never arrived.
The freelance photographer was supposed to move into a property in Bow, east London, but is still in her parents home in Teddington, south-west London, while she
waits for the bank to deal with the problem.
Banking error: Milley Colley, 27, left, was unable
to complete her house purchase yesterday because of NatWest's
payment problems while student Kora-Lee Holmes, 21, was stranded
in Venice
'The completion date was yesterday but NatWest have been having problems since Tuesday.
I went into a branch to do a same day payment to my solicitor but that payment never
arrived,' she said.
'I phoned NatWest and the person told me it had arrived and there was no problem.
The money left my bank immediately on Tuesday but has still not
arrived.
'Then yesterday they said they did not know where the money had
gone.
'I have got all my stuff packed up and I had taken the
day off working yesterday and I was ready to go.'
She is moving into the flat on her own and has funded the purchase through a private family loan. Two other people
in the chain are believed to be affected.
Meanwhile, student Kora-Lee Holmes, 21, was stranded in Venice,
Italy, unable to pay her hotel for the stay because her
bank card was not working.
She missed her flight home while she battled to make the payment so her father Adrian was forced to spend £200 to
re-book her on another one last night.
The Hull University student said: 'I tried paying
the hotel with my NatWest Visa debit card but it didn't work and when I got on my online banking I was
unable to transfer any money.
'I was trying to get the money paid while all the time the clock was ticking down to when my
flight took off. I tried phoning NatWest but there was
a 45 minute queue.
'I just got the standard response on the website about a temporary problem with
the site and that was at 8.30am Italian time. This didn't help me.'
She was flying back to Newcastle instead of Manchester
because it was the only flight available.
The weekly paid admin worker, who lives in the Midlands, was relying
on her salary going into her account to keep her in credit.
She said: ‘I am really annoyed. My worry is what is going
to happen with the direct debits that are supposed to be going out?'
Lance King and his family were left homeless after the problems at NatWest caused their house purchase to fall through.
He and wife Gemma had sold their previous property,
but could not move into their new one because
IT problems meant the money for the sale had failed to appear.
Last night they and their two daughters, aged one and five, were forced to
stay with Mrs King's parents.
‘It is a complete nightmare,' said Mr King, 34, from Whiteley, Hampshire.
‘We had a removal van outside the house waiting to get in but because the money was in a NatWest
account, we couldn't complete the sale.
‘All of our stuff is now in storage and my wife and two children are living with my in-laws.
The stress has been horrendous.'
Although he is not a NatWest customer, Mr King's move was brought to a halt because his
solicitor's account is with NatWest.
‘For a big corporate bank it is just unbelievable,' he added.
Also hit by the problem were first-time buyers Mike Johnson and his pregnant wife Laura.
The couple were thrown out of a house they thought they had paid for
on Thursday after the problems at NatWest meant the payment did not go through as expected.
The Johnsons had been allowed access to the newly-built property
after transferring the money to their solicitor's NatWest client account on Monday.
But the balance still hadn't arrived on Thursday - so that evening the site manager arrived at their house and asked them
to leave.
‘We had to pack our bags then and there and we are
now living with our sister-in-law until this
is sorted out,' Mr Johnson said.
Mark Groom, of Groom Halliday Property Solicitors,
said: ‘If we can't see the money - whether or not it is actually there - a property sale
simply cannot complete. Because so many completions occur on Fridays, the
numbers affected will be huge.'
A NatWest spokesman said they were doing ‘absolutely everything
they could' to fix the problem.
WAS NATWEST'S NEW MOBILE PAYMENTS GIZMO TO BLAME?
Last Wednesday, NatWest heralded a leap forward for its
mobile phone payment technology.
It launched a system - GetCash - that would allow people to take cash from
an ATM without using their cash card, by making a request on their
handset.
They are sent a six digit pin number, after making the request,
which can be entered at a cash machine.
The aim, the bank said, was to help people who may have lost or forgotten their card
or those who want to leave their wallet at home.
It was made available to around two and-a-half million customers who
already have the banking app on their phone - on iPhone, Android or BlackBerry Smartphones, and on the iPad.
The launch comment from Ben Green, head of mobile at NatWest
and RBS, well now have a sense or irony: 'We've heard
countless stories from customers who've left their wallet behind, or parents who need a quick way to send money across to their children immediately.'
The first customers knew of a problem was when their cards were rejected at tills and ATMs.
NatWest put a message on its website in the
morning which read: ‘We are currently experiencing technical issues which mean that a number of customer account balances have not yet
been updated and some of our online services are temporarily unavailable.'
Student Kora-Lee Holmes, from Hull, sent a tweet
saying she had been blocked from checking out of a hotel in Italy and so had missed
her flight home. She posted: ‘Missed my
flight home from Venice because NatWest's
server problems…New flights = £200.'
Customers finally began reporting that their accounts were back up and running, including
salary credits, at around 4pm.
NatWest, which has 7.5million personal banking customers, is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland group, and is 80 per cent owned by the taxpayer.
The bank pledged that no customer would be out of pocket as a
result of the ‘technical' problems.
'More technical problems lie ahead for ALL
British banks'
Last week, RBS-NatWest launched a mobile banking app that
lets people to withdraw money from cash machines using
their smartphone.
It is the latest bank to offer such technology as the industry moves towards making smartphones digital wallets.
But the rush to offer new technology may come at a price.
Experts warned that customers of UK banks would increasingly face such problems because of the rush
to deliver new and evermore sophisticated services.
Daoud Fakhri, senior analyst at consultancy Datamonitor Financial Services, said: ‘This episode is emblematic of wider problems facing the banking sector as
a whole.
'Many providers, being early adopters of IT systems when the technology was still in its infancy,
have been left saddled with inflexible core systems that are often several decades old, and that are increasingly unable to cope with the demands being placed on them.
‘The growing expectations of consumers around online and mobile
banking means that the tensions between the provision of ever more sophisticated
services and the capability of core systems
to satisfy these demands are close to breaking point, and this increases the likelihood of episodes such as the NatWest mishap happening again.'
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RBS-NatWest bank meltdown rolls on: Chaos to hit millions
all weekend, customers STILL can't get w... عرض المزيد