MSE News: TSB starts paying out compensation for online banking outage

Caddyman

orrery wrote: »

We should probably cut them some slack here. TSB were an offshoot of Lloyds and were still renting their system.

This wasn't an 'upgrade' - their IT team had to migrate their entire system from Lloyds to their own system. This was a massive undertaking and obviously went wrong, even though they will have spent a long time testing and rehearsing. Sometimes it is impossible to predict the problems that you will come up against when you do it for real.

As for their branches - my 92 year old Mum is given lots of help in their branch, something you don't get in many banks these days. They even gave her a TSB brolly when it was bucketing down outside, which she carries with great pride.

I'm sorry, I've not cut them any slack at all. At the end of the day, as I said in a previous post, I never stepped foot into a TSB Branch in the first place (the nearest branch being 20 miles from my home), it was a switch from a former bank to TSB all done online. They gave me free money to switch. I've never been overdrawn with them, I used the bank for minimal banking purposes and still sucked an extra fiver a month out of them for two direct debits. The fact that they just couldn't get this major platform change correct first time, is their fault, no one elses, they foot the blame, end of.

I'm 50 years old. I haven't used 'traditional' banking in the sense of actually using a branch, for over 10 years, so branch based banking is to be honest, pretty 20th Century in my books. Every aspect of my banking is done mostly through my smartphone app, or online. The bank I've just switched to from the TSB account, is a UK app only bank, which will suit me just fine. I still have 3 other working accounts with both Lloyds and Nationwide. I'll be dropping Lloyds in the next 4 weeks as I no longer need their services.

Don't get me wrong, I can see why much more senior members of the public most likely still need access to a 'physical' branch, but sadly for them, the likelihood is, there will be very few bricks and mortar branches left within the next 20 years anyway. If we want to maintain 'free' banking, then most likely, branch closures will be the only alternative. I noted that when I last stepped foot into my local Lloyds Branch, most of the customers in the queue, were either quite elderly, or business owners paying in money. There seemed to be very few younger people there. As it was, I stood there for almost 15 minutes before I got served just to swap 5 bags of pennies for a fiver. I don't miss everyday branch banking one bit.

Caddyman

Fingerbobs wrote: »

Yes. Why do it at a time when problems are very likely to occur, regardless of who is responsible for sorting them out?

I really don't see what the issue is. It's a full four weeks before my next pension payment goes into the new bank. At the end of the day, they and TSB are part of CASS and therefore it's up to them to sort it out. The CASS process takes seven working days. I'm not put off by 'scaremongering' concerning this TSB debacle and the actual switch process.

wrongplanet

orrery wrote: »

TSB were an offshoot of Lloyds and were still renting their system.

Actually a sell-off. In order to comply with EC state aid requirements after the government rescue in 2009 they formed and sold off a retail business with over 600 branches as TSB.

Migrating a live online banking operation over to a new platform must be a complete nightmare and rolling back is not really an option once any external transactions have been carried out.

It's been suggested that the timing might have been rushed due to GDPR coming in in 25 May.

wrongplanet

What's the likelihood of a rather attractive switching offer from TSB once the dust has settled?

Caddyman

wrongplanet wrote: »

What's the likelihood of a rather attractive switching offer from TSB once the dust has settled?

What's the likelihood they'll need to offer some exceptional incentive? because I'm sure they'll lose plenty of customers over this fiasco. For me, it just wasn't good enough, that's why I've switched.

Ashen

The latest weekly MSE email has 'TSB £40 reclaim' in the subject. Hmm.

Mchambers

Ashen wrote: »

The latest weekly MSE email has 'TSB £40 reclaim' in the subject. Hmm.

Nice and easy £40.

Zero_Sum

aj23 wrote: »

People are just going to milk this. What did people do before online banking? Go to branch and pay your credit card with cash, card or cheque; post a cheque, or phone them and pay with a card. Simple.

Seriously, there is a life outside of online banking. There are still all the other ways of paying.

Complaining because you can't pay your credit card and get £40? There's no "can't" about it. She could pay it, via post, telephone or branch, but probably left it until the night before it's due so it shows a reliance on credit and not paying it back quickly. And as part of that £40 included £15 to cover interest on the payment due, it shows that she'd left it too late, which is why she was charged interest (not because of the checks, I mean, come one. You only get charged interest for being late).

And no replies about people being too busy to go to branch, make a phone call or writing a cheque in the post please.

Ive got 2 credit cards and can make payment via debit card on the credit cards website. Ive never sent payment via my banks website/app.

aj23_2

cjv wrote: »

I have asked for a good will gesture for the time, hassle and expense of having to deposit some money manually into another Bank Account as I could not transfer it from my TSB account online.

I am also considering a claim for whiplash due to neck pain, suffered from looking at their login screen for 5 days.

I hope this is sarcasm.

aj23_2

Caddyman wrote: »

I'm sorry, I've not cut them any slack at all. At the end of the day, as I said in a previous post, I never stepped foot into a TSB Branch in the first place (the nearest branch being 20 miles from my home), it was a switch from a former bank to TSB all done online. They gave me free money to switch. I've never been overdrawn with them, I used the bank for minimal banking purposes and still sucked an extra fiver a month out of them for two direct debits. The fact that they just couldn't get this major platform change correct first time, is their fault, no one elses, they foot the blame, end of.

I'm 50 years old. I haven't used 'traditional' banking in the sense of actually using a branch, for over 10 years, so branch based banking is to be honest, pretty 20th Century in my books. Every aspect of my banking is done mostly through my smartphone app, or online. The bank I've just switched to from the TSB account, is a UK app only bank, which will suit me just fine. I still have 3 other working accounts with both Lloyds and Nationwide. I'll be dropping Lloyds in the next 4 weeks as I no longer need their services.

Don't get me wrong, I can see why much more senior members of the public most likely still need access to a 'physical' branch, but sadly for them, the likelihood is, there will be very few bricks and mortar branches left within the next 20 years anyway. If we want to maintain 'free' banking, then most likely, branch closures will be the only alternative. I noted that when I last stepped foot into my local Lloyds Branch, most of the customers in the queue, were either quite elderly, or business owners paying in money. There seemed to be very few younger people there. As it was, I stood there for almost 15 minutes before I got served just to swap 5 bags of pennies for a fiver. I don't miss everyday branch banking one bit.

It's not only senior members of the public who use branches. All ages do. I often seeing disabled and people with other impairments using branches. There's usually a little group of down syndrome people in there and the only way they can do their banking is in branch with their passbook. I'm 26 and I don't bank online. Banking should be free anyway, it always has been. Banks do anything they can to maintain or increase profits. They don't care about the customer. Unless we all keep our money under our mattress, nothing will change. You can speak for your own experience in Lloyds Bank, but you can't speak for anyone else. My experience is very different to yours. Many banks and BS's are actually opening more branches because their research shows that their customers want more branch based products and services. People are wising up to this Contactless, online only con. I often hear people at the counter saying I don't, want or can't bank online.