Natwest/RBS glitch

[hornetrider]

Is there a thread about this already, can't find one.

Seems no-one can access accounts or process payments, and it's been like this for three days! Stories of house sales falling through too, nightmare.

Apparently caused by a software upgrade balls up. Someone's head will be on a spike.

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turbobloke said:

Or possibly "UK bank back office IT geeks not very good geeks".

Yes, this. Probably outsourced, and heads they are a rollin'.

Would love to be in the know as to precisely how this happened, all I've seen is 'failed upgrade' but Software Testing 101 is always ensure there is a blackout/rollback strategy.

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Ozzie Osmond said:

Precisely. That's why I see it as a fundamental failure of the bank rather then just an excuse to blame the geeks.

I'll bet some twit decided a decent rollback strategy wasn't worth the cost.

Just noticed my iPhone spell correcting backout

I read on the Register that RBS have cut 1000 techy staff in the last year to push through efficiency savings whilst maintaining frontline staff. If you cut back on testing or quality of staff there is always the risk of something like this happening.

This is going to be a massively expensive mistake when people start hitting them with incidental costs they have incurred because of this. Imagine homeowners unable to move and the associated costs!!

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Apache said:

Because some people do not not have the capacity to do this.

Indeed. And why walk around with £300 notes stuffed in your wallet when there's cash machines everywhere?

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Condor - do you have 300k squirrelled away under your sofa just incase your house purchase goes tits up? No? Do you pay all your utility bills via cash stuffed under your mattress? No?

Well in that case, pipe down, as that was the point I was making.

fk me.

Edited slightly

Edited by hornetrider on Sunday 24th June 09:20

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Sexual Chocolate said:

3) The upgrade failed - Hmmm, this would be tested big time, so something went wrong when it was applied to the production environment. Possibly the test environment differs from production systems, fat fingers or other essential checks were not made?
4) The backout corrupted the system - Well, that is not good. Again this is testing 101. See my previous answer.

.

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roachcoach said:

Yup, though I think more likely the issue sits firmly on the desk of the head of tech (or whatever flavour of name they have over there).

CEO has a responsibility to be sure, but there's got to be a degree of trust in the staff you delegate to, otherwise he'd be manning the phone in the call centres

Problem is Mr IT Dept Manager will have a budget and targets to hit regarding CapEx and OpEx. They come from oop above.

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ExFiF said:

Thing is though, Mr CEO might be under pressure to improve results, there are a number of ways of doing this, increasing market share, increasing operational efficiency, improving yields, all generally aimed at reducing costs.

Everyone at the sharp end of things knows the weak links of their operation, and if they are diligent deal with the ones they can deal with and, if a suitable culture exists, point out the rest of the weak spots, within reason, in a constructive way one hopes.

The CEO may or may not also know about these weak spots, but of all these improvements the only cost saving that they can 100% guarantee is reducing the headcount, which has a short term cost in redundancy etc, but a long term saving. The problem that time and again happens is that the cost savings never materialise, and after a few months you get staff back that you have made redundant / retired early but now as contractors / consultants, and on higher costs. I can quote one case where a retiree is now back working 50% time for 125% of his previous salary. This is quite a moderate case too.

It's rife through both the private and public sectors how much of this goes on.

You can thank amazing process efficiency suits-with-no-fecking-clue like Accenture for that one

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Sexual Chocolate said:

and now check this

http://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/search-jobs-in-Edinb...

I've contracted for Lorien

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Fantic SuperT said:

"A junior technician in India caused the RBS computer meltdown which froze millions of British bank accounts, it was claimed last night"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165202/Di...

That's the sensationalist Wail version who are reporting the Register article above.

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smack said:

hornetrider said:

Fantic SuperT said:

"A junior technician in India caused the RBS computer meltdown which froze millions of British bank accounts, it was claimed last night"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165202/Di...

That's the sensationalist Wail version who are reporting the Register article above.

Well if this is the kick needed to bring these kinds of job back to the UK then let the Wail sensationalize it all they want I say.

For what it's worth, I thoroughly agree!

(I'm coming up to renewal!)

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Fantic SuperT said:

So do I, especially since I spoke to the DM journos last night and gave them the story.

How much do they pay for that?!

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Bump.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/ep...

Heads must roll.