BLUNDERING BANK SHREDS ITS REPUTATION . . . AGAIN
YOU really could not make it up. With its reputation in shreds following an IT fiasco last year, TSB’s answer is to shut down branches, axe hundreds of jobs and push customers online.
The irony of trying to plug internet banking when its computer systems are a byword for ineptitude seems lost on the bank’s bosses. They appear blithely unaware of the huge deficit in trust they need to make good.
For TSB to add to the branch closures sweeping Britain will merely bring more misery to customers.
More than 3,300 bank branches have been shut in the past five years, more than a third of the total network. Now TSB wants to make life even harder for those who prefer traditional banking.
Its claim that 65 per cent of people will be no more than four miles from an outlet shows a total lack of sensitivity.
Four miles is a long way if you are in your eighties, don’t drive and are not on a regular bus route – and what about the other 35 per cent?
The task of repairing TSB’s standing falls to its highly-respected new chief executive, Debbie Crosbie. Her problem, however, is that millions of customers do not trust either online banking or TSB – and is it any wonder?
Its motto – ‘Local banking for Britain’ – rings hollow considering its plans to pull up the shutters on more than 80 branches, and the fact that since 015 it has been owned by a Spanish parent, Banco Sabadell.
By Mrs Crosbie’s own admission, TSB’s costs are too high and need to come down. But closing branches and coercing customers online is not the answer.
Plenty of people steer clear of internet banking even if they are perfectly at home with new technology.
Some are worried about fraud. In fairness, on that point TSB has led the way by promising to refund innocent victims, for which it deserves praise.
But customers also fret about the technology going haywire and on that front the bank is on very shaky ground. The meltdown last year, which locked two million people out of their accounts, was the worst IT debacle suffered by any bank in the UK in recent history.
That disgraceful episode was not even an isolated affair. There was a second incident five months later. Then, incredibly, last week only days after a damning report from law firm Slaughter & May into the 018 catastrophe, there was another gremlin.
TSB’s recent troubles date from its takeover by Sabadell, when it became just another outpost in the Spanish lender’s global empire.
Now Sabadell has difficulties of its own, and there are rumours it will try to sell TSB, meaning yet more disruption.
TSB was supposed to be one of a new breed of challenger banks offering far better service than the Big Four. Instead, the Totally Shambolic Bank has delivered only chaos and failure.