RBS and other Banks have Creaking IT Systems

Head of bankers’ association blames move to mobile banking for payment processing glitch

RBS’s latest IT failure was described as unacceptable by the head of the British Bankers’ Association, who said banks’ IT systems were “creaking” under the strain of customer demand.

In an interview on Radio 5’s Wake up to Money, the chief executive of the BBA, Anthony Browne, said the move to mobile banking and changes in the way we interact with our bank was putting pressure on struggling systems.

On Wednesday it emerged that 600,000 payments to customers of RBS, NatWest and other banks in the same group had not been processed. The payments which included wages, tax credits and disability living allowance, failed to turn up in customers’ accounts as expected.

The bank is still telling affected customers that payments will be processed by Saturday, and has said that no one will be out of pocket as a result. However, customers have acted angrily to the delays, and reported a long wait to get through on the bank’s helpline.

Asked about the problems at RBS, Browne said: “The banks are all very aware of this as an issue. A lot of them have creaking IT systems. They are spending £3bn a year upgrading their IT systems. It’s one of the biggest IT upgrades Britain has ever seen.”

Brown said that in previous years technical issues may have gone unnoticed by customers, but expectations had changed.

“Just maybe five years ago or so if you had to go to your branch to make a payment, or you had to go to your branch to check what your balance is, or you had to pay by cheque which went in a lorry and was driven round the country, if you had an outage of a few hours then most people probably wouldn’t have noticed.”

The banks are spending £3bn a year upgrading their IT systems