TSB

[spikey]

Seeing as how we're now four whole days past the time when everything was supposed to be back to rights with TSB internet banking, has anybody here managed to get onto the site yet?

 

Anybody else wondering if they're going to make it a full week?

[ejstubbs]

I was able to log in this afternoon.

It has undoubtedly been a catastrophic shambles, no question. Fortunately for me I am not in any way out of pocket. Others will not have been so lucky.

And the communication has been appalling : glibly announcing on Tuesday that services were back online, blithely ignoring the fact that most customers still couldn't get logged in.

 

I did actually get a login screen at one point on Tuesday or Wednesday.  It then told me that I had got my login credentials wrong.  Three times.  Which I hadn't - they were the same ones I used successfully today.  (I had been under the impression that it was supposed to lock my online banking account if I got my login wrong three times in a row.  It didn't do that, either.)

Edited April 26, 2018 by ejstubbs

[chris p bacon]

Speaking to someone who has been in banking for years, he said this was going to happen at some time to one of the banks,  as the IT infrastructure that banks use is essentially stuck in the 80's,  He said that TSB were the first to try and rid themselves of the old system, and he reckoned they were doing a pretty good job considering what they were up against.

He did say the backlash from the media was why the other banks aren't keen to try and update.

 

It's quite telling that he will not in any way use 'online banking' with his own bank,  until they update their own system.

[ejstubbs]

Speaking to someone who has been in banking for years, he said this was going to happen at some time to one of the banks

 

It happened to RBS back in 2012.

 

He said that TSB were the first to try and rid themselves of the old system

 

TSB was actually being migrated off the Lloyds Banking Group platform that had been hosting it since it had been resurrected as a standalone bank, on to the platform run by the bank that bought TSB from Lloyds, Sabadell.

 

I think Tesco Bank was actually one of the first to move off a legacy platform, must have been back in the noughties sometime IIRC.  They had problems with their migration (off the RBS platform as it happens), but they didn't have as many current a/c customers at the time as TSB does so it didn't create half as much noise - although the FSA took a keen interest.

 

I don't know whether Sabadell's platform has legacy technology foundations or is all new.  I did find it amusing the way that they talked up their ability to integrate acquired banks - just like RBS used to do...

Edited April 26, 2018 by ejstubbs

[rue_d_etropal]

TSB were developing a new system back in the 90s, then merged with lloyds so it was dropped. All banking systems have to be super secure, so any big rewrite has to have basic safeguards, and as someone today pointed out. If there is a problem on day 1, then you have to be able to roll back to pre update systems, and that does not seem to have happened. What ever anyone says about it not being possible, it has to be possible and that is a fundamental systems concept. I used to work in IT, including a couple of banks and have been through the update cycle.

Other banks?  well Nat West/RBS would be very wary of any new updates given some of the problems they have had, partly caused by the idea that you can get rid of all the staff who know how the system works and do it cheaper with less experienced staff.

When you look at some of the banking system program code, you might think you have travelled back to the 80s. That is partly because that code actually works, unlike some of the quick-write type code now used. As one IT representative told me, the new code won't necessarily fall over, but won't necessarily give you the correct answers. Trouble is it has gone even further and the code does now fall over.

Oh, I actually do bank with TSB. Have not tried to use online, won't till it is sorted out. No customer will lose out, politically that won't be allowed to happen.

Edited April 26, 2018 by rue_d_etropal

[Jonboy]

This does seem to be one of those perverse situations where the government forced Lloyd’s TSB to split, and are now planning to hit them with a big stick (penalty’s) now one of the major steps has had a bit of a hiccup.

 

Having seen the effort that goes into rolling back and re-entering data from a single day for an SME with a few hundred transactions in a day, i get why they cannot roll back a live banking system with a couple of million customers.

 

Luckily I only have an empty savings account with tsb ( never got round to closing it).

[jonny777]

Seeing as how we're now four whole days past the time when everything was supposed to be back to rights with TSB internet banking, has anybody here managed to get onto the site yet?

 

Anybody else wondering if they're going to make it a full week?

 

 

I have been able to log on since yesterday, and the account appears to be operating normally. 

 

I have used my debit card and made a cash transfer, and both seem to have gone through without a hitch. 

 

The problem seemed to be that there were some glitches as the site went live again on Monday and then everyone tried to logon at once, plus the thousands of excitable media folk trying to login ten times a minute each, that it overloaded the system. 

 

I suppose in these days of instant social media reaction, the 200 people who had initial problems take priority over the 5 million who didn't. 

[ejstubbs]

This does seem to be one of those perverse situations where the government forced Lloyd’s TSB to split

 

It was the European Commission that required Lloyds to divest itself of TSB, as recompense for the billions of pounds of state aid it received in 2009.

 

Same idea as NatWest being forced to divest itself of a good chunk of its branch network, and other parts of its business (including Direct Line and Worldpay).  In RBS' case the divestment of the branches has been abandoned after trying and failing twice.  The first time the branches were going to be bought by Santander, which then pulled out of the deal at the last minute (after RBS had already spent a shedload of cash equipping the branches to be switched over to the Santander network).  The second time RBS tried to do what Lloyds basically did with TSB, by creating a separate bank (using the old Williams ands Glyn name in RBS' case) which they could then sell.  They gave up on that idea in the end because...well, I was there and it wasn't pretty, but I should probably leave it at that on a public forum.  Since then RBS has probably just closed as many branches as it was told to divest itself of, so in one way the end result for RBS has been the same.  It still kept the actual business, of course - less all the customers it lost as a result of its near failure in 2008, and the various scandals and IT failures that have occurred since.  It did agree some kind of quid pro quo instead of the branch divestment but I think it was largely a figleaf to cover the fact that the bank is so damaged there isn't really anything left that anyone with half a brain would want to buy, with any supposed benefit from the state aid long since evaporated.

 

I don't know whether there is any significance in the fact that the two foreign banks involved in thing going awry at RBS and TSB are both domiciled in the same country...

Edited April 26, 2018 by ejstubbs

[ejstubbs]

I suppose in these days of instant social media reaction, the 200 people who had initial problems take priority over the 5 million who didn't. 

 

I think you are vastly underestimating the scale of the problem.  The fact that everything seemed to be operating normally for you is probably of little comfort to those who may be facing real problems on account of not being able to pay bills or complete major transactions on time.  Online banking is telling me that it's unavailable again just now, so the problem is still ongoing.  This is not just a few people creating a fuss on social media: TSB and Sabadell screwed up royally and will have created non-trivial problems for a fair few folks.

 

To suggest that a few journos trying to log on were responsible for overloading the system is bordering on the farcical IMO.

 

There's a strong whiff of I'm-all-right-Jack in your posting, to be frank.

Edited April 26, 2018 by ejstubbs

[Dunsignalling]

When I worked for (the old) TSB in days of yore (1968-91), our computer accounting set-up which came on stream (IIRC) c.1980, was reckoned to be one of the best in the industry (a pal who worked for the Midland reckoned it was streets ahead of theirs) and I would imagine quite a lot of it would have been retained after the merger with Lloyds (which took place shortly after I got a proper job with BR).

 

In the intervening two and a half decades the two sets of systems may well have become extensively intermeshed, possibly with new facilities/developments using bits of both, as well as changes being overlaid on them and other, completely new, things having to be linked in some way to the existing set-up. 

 

There are also, now, numerous permutations of customer origins,

 

Old TSB customers absorbed into Lloyds-TSB then Lloyds, some still with Lloyds, others who have moved to new TSB.

 

Old Lloyds customers, some still with Lloyds, others who have moved to new TSB. 

 

New customers who signed up with New TSB after it became nominally separate but still linked via the account processing system..

 

 

I am, by no means shocked, therefore, to hear that separating them out hasn't turned out exactly like a walk in the park.........  

 

 

John

Edited April 27, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[Andy Hayter]

At least many customers have the option of leaving and going to another bank.  

Those living outside of the UK and who have TSB accounts are basically stuck with them.

[spikey]

I have been able to log on since yesterday, and the account appears to be operating normally. 

 

I have used my debit card and made a cash transfer, and both seem to have gone through without a hitch.

Who's a lucky boy then?

 

The problem seemed to be ...

Seems to be. Not "seemed to be". The problem still exists for me, and seemingly for very many other customers.

Edited April 27, 2018 by spikey

[Quarryscapes]

Who's a lucky boy then?

 

 

Seems to be. Not "seemed to be". The problem still exists for me, and seemingly for very many other customers.

 

They reckon about 50% of customers hit. I'm in the lucky camp fortunately, although I don't rely solely on my TSB account anyway as they don't have local branches, I kept my old Natwest account which does have a local branch. 

[Purley Oaks]

Tried this morning for the first time this week without any joy.

 

My TSB account is not my main one so I'm not too bothered. If it was I'd be fizzing!

 

Mal

[ejstubbs]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/26/tsb-rift-with-spanish-owner-emerges-as-it-crisis-drags-on

 

The bank’s boss, Paul Pester, said TSB will waive £10m in overdraft fees and pay extra interest on current accounts. He has hired a new team of IT experts from IBM who have been told the problems must be fixed by Saturday.

 

Jaime Guardiola, the chief executive of TSB’s Spanish owner, Banco Sabadell, said customers may have to wait until next week before normal service returns.

 

This is not a minor glitch.  It's going to end up costing TSB a sizeable chunk of money in staff overtime and IBM consultants, plus financial sweeteners to try to stop customers from jumping ship.  The reputational damage is going to be non-trivial, and the FCA is going to be all over them and may yet end up imposing a regulatory fine.

 

I have been able to access my account more reliably so far today, although I did notice that I didn't get my weekly current account balance text this morning.  That latter suggests to me that they're still flat out implementing and verifying a robust fix (in the broadest sense of the term) for the core problem, and peripheral functions will have to wait to get fixed later.

 

(There are some dubious statements in the article linked above, though.  For example, it states: "TSB customers have spent their seventh successive day battling to access their accounts as the bank admitted the crisis could run into next week."  Given that the article is datelined yesterday, the 26th, and TSB didn't start the upgrade until 4pm on Friday 20th, then that assertion at the very least is questionable in its accuracy.  If anyone was 'battling' to access their account between 4pm last Friday and 6pm Sunday then they simply hadn't read the e-mails, or the advanced notices posted on the TSB web site.)

Edited April 27, 2018 by ejstubbs

[johnd]

This problem goes back to the days of the failure of HBOS whose full extent of debt was not disclosed by the in government of the time in getting LloydsTsb to take over the bank !

If you use HBOS you are using a near match of LloydsTsb computer system yet the two I believe won't interact.

So draw your own conclusions as to the historical WHY the problem is happening . It's come about by political interference in the banking world so that a major bank would not go under ( politicaly dynamite ).

[Kickstart]

Hiya

 

Having worked in IT, and having contacts in banking in IT this doesn't surprise me. Major banking systems are massive, and replacing them would probably take many tens of thousands of person years of work to rewrite (with very many separate but interconnected systems). And suspect that they have very few of the staff left who have any knowledge of these systems (and quite likely little effort to pass any of this knowledge through to newer staff).

 

My better half works for a major bank in the IT section. Their reaction when Nat West had major problems wasn't that it had happened (more a case of which bank suffered first), rather surprise that they managed to stay in business after the problems lasted that long.

 

 

The bank’s boss, Paul Pester, said TSB will waive £10m in overdraft fees and pay extra interest on current accounts. He has hired a new team of IT experts from IBM who have been told the problems must be fixed by Saturday.

 

Good luck with that. Suspect a bunch of new consultants thrown at a very major existing system will probably just slow down any fixes in the short term.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[spikey]

Well, my cup runneth over, at least for the time being. I've finally managed to get my online banking toi work in as much as I can see an up-to-date statement and all appears to be well.

 

It'll be nice if this state of affairs continues, but I'm not holding my breath ...

[jonny777]

I think you are vastly underestimating the scale of the problem.  The fact that everything seemed to be operating normally for you is probably of little comfort to those who may be facing real problems on account of not being able to pay bills or complete major transactions on time.  Online banking is telling me that it's unavailable again just now, so the problem is still ongoing.  This is not just a few people creating a fuss on social media: TSB and Sabadell screwed up royally and will have created non-trivial problems for a fair few folks.

 

To suggest that a few journos trying to log on were responsible for overloading the system is bordering on the farcical IMO.

 

There's a strong whiff of I'm-all-right-Jack in your posting, to be frank.

 

 

Who's a lucky boy then?

 

 

Seems to be. Not "seemed to be". The problem still exists for me, and seemingly for very many other customers.

 

 

Well possibly you are right, but the OP asked if anyone had managed to get onto the site yet?

 

All I did was reply that I have had no problems. Apart from telling lies, I can't think of another way to respond unless I am in a minority of 1. 

 

 

Just to be on the safe side I had another go at logging on immediately before posting this reply, and again I had no problems with that. The two money transfers I made from a Natwest account over the last 24 hours have been credited properly; and if I had not read the newspapers (I rarely watch tv news programmes) I would not have known there was still a problem. 

 

Sorry for being so ignorant of a problem I cannot replicate personally. I hope everyone can connect with the bank asap. 

[pete_mcfarlane]

TSB were developing a new system back in the 90s, then merged with lloyds so it was dropped. All banking systems have to be super secure, so any big rewrite has to have basic safeguards, and as someone today pointed out. If there is a problem on day 1, then you have to be able to roll back to pre update systems, and that does not seem to have happened. What ever anyone says about it not being possible, it has to be possible and that is a fundamental systems concept. I used to work in IT, including a couple of banks and have been through the update cycle.

 

But they haven't upgraded - they've migrated their data to a completely different system. With a migration of this scale once live transactions are allowed on to the new system, and have made changes to the data, then it isn't easy to revert back to the old system. From then on, you have to make the new system work. 

 

You manage that risk by doing extensive validation testing at the point where the data has been migrated to the new system but you haven't made changes to it. If something is wrong with the data on the new system, then you back out. 

 

You also need to thoroughly test the new system before you move to it (including doing load testing to make sure that it doesn't grind to halt or behave strangely when people start using it for real). 

 

The problems reported in the media (poor performance followed by going offline (presumably for a restart of the system), and people seeing the wrong accounts) suggest that one or both of these wasn't done properly. Or that they were done properly, identified errors, and the management chose to ignore the problems and press ahead. 

Edited April 27, 2018 by pete_mcfarlane

[EddieB]

Banking system upgrades (or changes of system) tend to arise from two main sources.  The first is to meet legal/statutory/regulatory changes, where a deadline is imposed on the bank and they must be in a position to comply.  The second is where the change is driven by an internal requirement (which might include restructuring of the bank or a business unit), but where the deadline is set within the organisation itself.

 

From what I can tell, the present fiasco has arisen from trying (and being ill-prepared) to meet an internal deadline.  Having worked in this area, I've seen too many of these failures and near-failures - the "dependable" High Street Retail Banks usually being worse that the "casino" Investment Banks when it comes to implementing change (and just about everything else, Vince Cable please note).

 

The problem is that when The Plan is first drawn up, a deadline is set in stone (Someone's reputation at stake) and there is insufficient contingency for slippage and when things go wrong.  Right from the word go, pressure is put on The Plan - things are more complex than first realised (scope creep), but it's just using up the slack and no one really wants to admit that they're behind where they should be.  Gradually it gets worse.  Everyone knows things aren't where they should be, but no one publically challenges The Plan.  So there are compromises.  Staff are cajoled into working longer hours, giving up their weekends.  It'll be all right in the long run.  Whatever happens, the deadline can't be put back - That Someone (the one with the reputation at stake) has booked their holiday to start straight after the system goes live.

 

Except it's not alright.  Errors and mistakes are cheaper to fix earlier in the process, but they are always left to later.  Testing ought to take as long as the initial design, but it's crammed into whatever time is left.  The restore and back out plan is never tested as it should be - because it won't really be needed, will it?

 

Quite honestly, it ought to be unthinkable that a big organisation appears to still be making these same basic errors.  I hope they don't do what usually follows this project cycle - have a post mortem, blame it on the workforce, then quickly disappear into higher-salaried positions in similar organisations.

[forest2807]

My TSB account is a secondary one so luckily for me I haven't encountered any problems with cashflow, payments, etc. I use the TSB app on my phone and tablet and I tried to log in but a message appears telling me I have to re-register my device, which means digging out all the original paperwork, passwords, PINs, etc. Quite annoying but minor problems when compared to others.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Staff are cajoled into working longer hours, giving up their weekends.  It'll be all right in the long run.  

The good thing is that you can buy an awful lot of model trains with the overtime.....

[Guest]

It's not just Zammo...

 

https://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/news/croydon-news/wallington-based-grange-hill-star-1500367.amp

[Kickstart]

The good thing is that you can buy an awful lot of model trains with the overtime.....

You are assuming they get any overtime.......

 

The one I have a bit of knowledge of has virtually no UK based technical staff left in IT (most is done in cheaper countries, where they can get away with treating the staff worse). UK staff are mainly salaried with no overtime (some contractors though), and very much doubt they pay overtime to the cheaper programmers.

 

From memory, a major problem with the Nat West fiasco was that they had dumped most of their UK staff (and lost their knowledge at the same time), seemingly without making much effort to maintain their expensively gained knowledge base (*). Hence landing up paying silly money to some of those they had already got rid of to come back and dig them out.

 

All the best

 

Katy

 

(*) this doesn't surprise me - a UK utility I worked for wanted to split development and support of systems (intention being to sell off development), with zero understanding that support was far better if it kept all the knowledge gained during development.