Ridicule as boss says: It’s OK for most customers
THE boss of TSB faced ridicule last night after resorting to jargon to explain his bank’s IT meltdown and claiming everything was running smoothly for most customers.
Paul Pester, who was paid £1.8million last year, said 1.9million customers could not access their online bank accounts because his computers were not powerful enough to cope with the numbers logging on.
The 54-year-old insisted that there had not been a data breach even though customers were able to access other people’s bank accounts. And he was unable to say when the system will be up and running again.
Mr Pester could be stripped of his annual bonus over the fiasco. Last year he was handed pay-outs worth £433,858 but said he has not decided whether to voluntarily give up any money due in 2018.
The chief executive took to TV studios and Twitter to apologise to his customers. In an interview with Sky News, he said: ‘For the vast majority of our customers in the vast majority of ways, the bank is running smoothly.
‘I’m not trying to downplay some of the issues we’ve had on our digital channels, but it’s very specific.
‘Our website and our app have been unable to cope with the large numbers of concerned users that we’ve seen. This is about having enough bandwidth in our platform to cope with the number of users. We’ve not had a data breach.’
But customers on Twitter accused the bank of failing to act quickly enough. Michelle Ayres wrote: ‘This is not good enough. Need to make some payments and not been able to do this since Friday.
‘Not good enough and you will be losing a customer plus the thousands of others affected.’
Stephanie Dawn Smith said: ‘It is about time a detailed and honest statement was released!
‘Why did this happen? What is being done to fix it? Has there been data corruption? How much longer will customers be without banking services?’ Mr Pester likes to cast himself as a different sort of boss who wants to build a better banking industry.
He worked for Lloyds before overseeing its spin-off from TSB in 2013, then took the top job at the new bank and has since cultivated an image as the white knight of finance, attacking everything from unfair overdraft fees to irresponsible lending. ‘Depressingly, attitudes towards customers have not improved at all, despite the credit crisis,’ Mr Pester said in an interview last year.
‘From a consumer perspective, nothing has changed. Can I, as a consumer, get a better deal? No.
‘Do I feel the banks are operating on my behalf any more than they were? Probably no.’
Mr Pester also strives to appear down to earth. He is a keen runner who challenged employees to a ‘beat the boss’ competition for charity at last year’s London triathlon.
The father of two also enjoys surfing and has been travelling to Fistral beach in Newquay, Cornwall to ride the waves since the age of six.
He once described getting on the water as ‘a real level of escape’, saying the sea ‘feels more like a natural habitat’. Mr Pester was born in Plymouth to a swimming instructor father who once coached Olympic medallist Sharron Davies.
He obtained a mathematical physics doctorate from Oxford University before working as a consultant with firms including McKinsey.
His big break came in 1999 when he was made head of Virgin Money, before working for Lloyds and Moneyfacts. A short stint followed at Santander before he returned to Lloyds in 2010.
‘You’ll be losing a customer’