MSE News: TSB cancels direct debits of customers who've switched away - and claims they've DIED

pmduk

EachPenny wrote: »

The alternative analysis is they have migrated their IT onto a completely new platform which is not fit for purpose and is throwing up all kinds of problems which are linked back to the same IT migration. I'm confident "they" do "know what they are doing internally"... the problem is with an IT system which is not doing what it should.

But shouldn't they have checked it's fitness for purpose beforehand? Any IT migration should have a roll-back plan for disaster management.

masonic

pmduk wrote: »

But shouldn't they have checked it's fitness for purpose beforehand? Any IT migration should have a roll-back plan for disaster management.

I had the same thoughts but was told a rollback was impossible when a bank moves from one IT system to another. I have my doubts that's really true.

EachPenny

pmduk wrote: »

But shouldn't they have checked it's fitness for purpose beforehand? Any IT migration should have a roll-back plan for disaster management.

masonic wrote: »

I had the same thoughts but was told a rollback was impossible when a bank moves from one IT system to another. I have my doubts that's really true.

I have no expertise in banking IT systems, but from what people who seem to know what they are talking about were saying, plus my own experience in a different IT field, I'm quite willing to believe there was no realistic option of having a roll-back.

The only possible way perhaps would have been to take TSB's entire system offline for several days (perhaps weeks) and laboriously update the old Lloyds system so it reconciled with the new 'frozen' TSB one, before taking the Lloyds system 'live' again. That assumes it would be possible to get the Lloyds system back up, and that Lloyds were willing to do this. It also assumes all TSB customers would be willing to wait several days (perhaps weeks) with no access to any of their banking facilities.

I've worked on IT projects (managed by people who were experts in the field) where no roll-back was possible. It does happen and is something project planners have to deal with. In that situation disaster management requires specific migration methods to be adopted and/or being able to provide an alternative service if things go wrong.

Because a roll-back was not feasible, I think the strategy should have been to migrate customers in small batches to make sure the system was working with them before all customers started using it. If this happened, or why it didn't, are amongst various questions that TSB senior management will be discussing between themselves

Mchambers

ValiantSon wrote: »

Another facile comment, and also inaccurate. I posted yesterday, but unlike you I only post when I have something pertinent to add. Have you gone blind?

Welcome Mr TSB ! Care to comment on TSB's continued incompetence; today they have wrongly accused ex-TSB customers (switched their accounts from TSB) of being dead ? What a wonderful bank ? !

I wonder what they will do tomorrow !:D:rotfl:

Caddyman

HornetSaver wrote: »

TSB are in such a mess that I'm starting to take the view that 5% interest isn't enough to retain my custom. But switching at the current time would actually be a bigger risk.

I'm not entirely sure it would be as risky as one might think, though under the present circumstances I could understand anyone exercising caution.
The 5 percent interest certainly wasn't enough to keep me on their books. No bank is perfect, each bank has something slightly different to offer. I'm now experiencing a slightly different way of banking and it suits me.
The only advice I would give to anyone considering switching is to plan ahead before you make the leap. I've switched a few times now and I rather prefer to take action to migrate my own direct debits. Agreed, it slightly defeats the purpose of CASS, but at least if I do it myself, I know it's been done. CASS is still great for closing an existing account completely without the need to speak with the bank you are leaving.

EachPenny

Mchambers wrote: »

I wonder what they will do tomorrow !:D:rotfl:

Close (without compensation) the accounts of customers who haven't logged in and used online banking since the IT upgrade? :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

masonic

EachPenny wrote: »

Because a roll-back was not feasible, I think the strategy should have been to migrate customers in small batches to make sure the system was working with them before all customers started using it. If this happened, or why it didn't, are amongst various questions that TSB senior management will be discussing between themselves

Presumably migrating customers in batches would have been a nightmare for routing payments and customers would have to use different websites/apps for online banking, so I can understand why they wouldn't have gone down that route.

I find it hard to believe that there would be no quick mechanism to sync up a few days worth of transactions and data with the Lloyds system, when they only scheduled 2 days to switch over to Sabadell's fancy new system in the first place.

Of course, they would have had to continue paying Lloyds for a few more months if they put customers back on the working system while they sorted out the flaky one. So they gave us 2% extra interest on our current accounts instead.

paulbrighton2018

Mine currently working, though have got move in place to Halifax.. did take a few attempts initially, to get logged in after their weekend 'planned' outage.. Oddly no updates on Twitter, from their CEO , @ paulpester !

EachPenny

masonic wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that there would be no quick mechanism to sync up a few days worth of transactions and data with the Lloyds system, when they only scheduled 2 days to switch over to Sabadell's fancy new system in the first place.

At the risk of being shot down by someone who really understands the systems, my understanding is the migration to the new system simply involved queuing transactions, 'freezing' an account, transferring that account to the new system, then 'unfreezing' it. And then subsequently processing the queued transactions. Hence we had limited facilities and access that weekend to make the volume of queued activity manageable. As a one-way migration of 'frozen' data the process is relatively simple.

Taking the data back the other way would have required some reconciliation between the 'old' data on the Lloyds system and the data which had been transferred over to the new one, followed by re-processing each and every transaction on the account on the old system. Part of the problem with this is that the 'new' transactions were processed on the new (unreliable) system, so in re-applying them to the data on the old (but re-established system) there was the potential to be copying garbage from the new system onto the Lloyds one. This would have left TSB no further forward. I would also speculate that nobody in the migration team had developed the software required to port data from the new system back to Lloyds - and doing so would take time, especially as it would need to be thoroughly tested before implementation.

masonic wrote: »

Presumably migrating customers in batches would have been a nightmare for routing payments and customers would have to use different websites/apps for online banking, so I can understand why they wouldn't have gone down that route.

If it were planned and properly managed, operating two parallel systems should not have been an issue. The main difficulty would be ensuring people used the right online banking site depending on whether they had been migrated or not.

masonic

EachPenny wrote: »

Part of the problem with this is that the 'new' transactions were processed on the new (unreliable) system, so in re-applying them to the data on the old (but re-established system) there was the potential to be copying garbage from the new system onto the Lloyds one. This would have left TSB no further forward. I would also speculate that nobody in the migration team had developed the software required to port data from the new system back to Lloyds - and doing so would take time, especially as it would need to be thoroughly tested before implementation.

Ah, so you think there was actually wrongly processed data on the new system after it opened for business? I haven't really got a good understanding of the nature of the problems, but it seemed to me to be more of a denial of service and deadlocks due to high volume use of the service - that's certainly what I've experienced. But if mistakes have been made in recording transactions (rather than them just failing), then I see your point.

If it were planned and properly managed, operating two parallel systems should not have been an issue. The main difficulty would be ensuring people used the right online banking site depending on whether they had been migrated or not.

That part would be relatively easy because they control both sites. Ensuring payments were routed correctly could be more challenging. Presumably by moving a whole sort code, cheque payments and bank transfers would be covered, but Visa and Link card transactions for all of the corresponding cards would also need to be rerouted. I don't know what would happen if, for example, a customer held a credit card that wasn't migrated at the same time as their bank accounts, or held an account with a different sort code.