The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
More misery for bank customers over RBS problems
RBS/NatWest said it has fixed problems which left frustrated customers locked out of their online and mobile accounts.
Earlier, RBS chief executive Ross McEwan said the bank feels customers’ “pain” when problems arise with its systems – but he added that such incidents were becoming less frequent.
Customers started reporting problems at around 5am yesterday and a statement issued later in the morning by the bank said the issues had been resolved.
The problems, which lasted around five hours, are thought to have potentially stemmed from a firewall upgrade, but investigations remain ongoing.
The bank has said no customer data was compromised at any point.
The issues had affected NatWest, Ulster Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland customers.
The latest disruption came just a day after Barclays customers were leftstrugglingtologin. Those issues have also been fixed.
Westminster Treasury Committee chairwoman Nicky Morgan has written to bosses at RBS and Barclays to find out what went wrong and how both banks intend to compensate customers.
Mrs Morgan said: “This is yet another addition to the litany of failures of banking IT systems.
“Potentially millions of customers could be affected by uncertainty and disruption.
“It simply isn’t good enough to expose customers to IT failures, including delays in paying bills and an inability to access their own money.
“High street banks justify the closure of their branch networks on the basis that they are providing a seamless online and mobile phone banking service. These justifications carry little weight if their banking apps and websites cannot be relied upon.”
A statement from RBS said: “We would like to apologise to customers who experienced issues logging into their online and mobile banking accounts this morning, this issue has now been resolved.”
Earlier yesterday, Mr McEwan told LBC: “We feel the pain for our customers every time this happens. We’re still working through what the issue is there...
“Absolute apologies to customers who are used to using mobile.”
Meanwhile, HSBC is carrying out routine maintenance tomorrow morning which means its mobile banking app and online banking will be unavailable for a period.