It’s now easier to change banks, so maybe a mass switch is required to bring RBS to its senses.
What more can go wrong with RBS?
Last week, supermarket trolleys full of food were abandoned, mothers couldn’t buy milk for babies and motorists had fuel in their tanks but no way to pay all thanks to an RBS computer “glitch.”
No, your memory isn’t playing tricks. That’s exactly the same excuse offered last summer when millions of RBS, Nat West and Ulster Bank customers were locked out of their accounts some for up to a month.
Payments went missing, wages disappeared and house purchases were disrupted. The bank had to keep branches open late to help customers and paid out compensation of £175 million.
So did they learn or fix anything? Apparently not.
Before last week’s meltdown there were other IT failures. Last October RBS suspended its mobile GetCash app after attack by fraudsters. Earlier this year, mobile apps used by two million customers also failed. Finally the whole RBS system crashed for three hours on Cyber Monday, the busiest shopping day of the year. Why?
Bank chief Ross McEwan said: “RBS has failed to invest properly in its systems for decades. We need to put our customers’ needs at the centre of all we do. It will take time, but we are investing heavily in building IT systems our customers can rely on.”
Ya what?
Why will it “take time” to put customers first hasn’t RBS had five long years to do just that?
There are good people working at RBS but the bank’s ethos just looks bonus-focused, greedy and sloppy. Because IT meltdowns are not the only problem.
An adviser to Vince Cable claims RBS deliberately ruined small businesses to buy their property and assets back at knock down prices. RBS deny this but the Serious Fraud Office is deciding whether to investigate and the Business Secretary says the evidence is “solid” and “appalling”. And that’s not all.
RBS has been fined £390 million for letting staff fix the Libor inter-bank lending rate and has had to compensate small businesses mis-sold interest rate swaps. According to the BBC’s Robert Peston, the 81% taxpayer owned bank may face more mis-selling scandals too.
It seems there’s a jaw-dropping RBS scandal every other week so why is there no public outrage?
How could a bank the size of RBS limp along using an outdated IT system for decades when the lives of millions rely on it? One expert suggests RBS software had been broken for some time but the bank hadn’t encountered the situation that finally revealed it.
That “situation” happened last week. Maybe it was an untrained operator who didn’t know the cunning fix everyone else was using needed to keep a dud application running a fix that should never have become standard operating procedure in the first place.
Or maybe it’s simpler. Maybe solving the IT problem would cut into shareholder profits, dividends and bonuses. And that perk driven culture still drives RBS.
It’s hard to come to any other conclusion.
But unfortunately for RBS it’s easier to move banks.
If this meltdown is the last straw, new rules mean you can be up and running with a new account in seven working days.
Maybe a mass switch is the only thing that will bring RBS to its senses. Meantime everyone who had to get cash on a credit card or go into overdraft should reclaim costs and charges.
Keep receipts and check to see you don’t have a credit black mark all because of the RBS.
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