Nat West computer glitch

rhody

rhody

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What an utter shambles for all concerned and deeply frustrating that all online transactions are cancelled until the backlog of work is cleared!

I can go in and collect cash - but I can't pay anyone from my account.

Aaaaaaarrrgggggghhhhhh!
 
Bankcartoon.jpg
 
I'm sure there is much more behind this than is in the public domain.

It is very worrying.

Money being paid to me is on hold and I can't make any online payments until they sort this mess out.

I have bills to pay and people I need to send money to and unless I go into a branch and collect cash there is no other way to do this until the online service is restored.

A payment to me from my employer was refused until the "glitch" is repaired.

Meanwhile we just have to wait.
 
Worryingly, according to the BBC news this morning - the backlog still has to be resolved and NatWest cannot give any guarantees when the online banking service will be restored.

The scale of this problem beggars belief and no end in sight :bang:
 
Love it, Ian! :thumbs:

I'm the other way round; transferred lots of money for a nice expensive car on Friday and then they told me they banked with Nat West ... :bang:
 
It would appear that there were some changes made to their internal systems relating to BACS (the industry standard system for moving money) which have caused the problems.

Some transfers need to be reversed and reapplied but there are probably a lot of transfers that have black holed.

Having been in the industry for 15 years, unfortunately these things do happen, a seemingly simple change has massive impact, the problem is that the larger the company the higher profile the issue becomes.

OK, it probably shouldn't have happened in the first place but Natwest do seem to be doing all they can to fix it and provide customer support by extending the opening hours or branches.

Just for the record.... I don't work for Natwest but I do work for a company that used to process all of their transactions ;)
 
Great Cartoon Ian :thumbs:

I'm in the same boat, I can't access my FULL statements, (just the highlights)
but someone did transfer money in 2 days ago,
( which arrived / cleared within 24 hours, and my standing orders do appear to be leaving my account.

It seems that some people are being harder hit than others ?
Also to be fair they do appear to be trying their best, even opening on a Sunday to "help customers out"
 
I almost switched to RBS a little while ago... really glad I didn't.
 
Could have happened to any bank and still could. Minor software upgrades often cause unforseen problems down the line, sometimes major ones.
 
Steep said:
Could have happened to any bank and still could. Minor software upgrades often cause unforseen problems down the line, sometimes major ones.
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Shows the importance of not having all your eggs in one basket - a lot of people seem to trust in a single debit card as a sole means of paying for everything.
 
RBS/Natwest sacked a load of their IT staff. I bet they're regretting doing that now.

Someone I know mentioned that when RBS took over Natwest they didn't use natwest's super duper IT system but went back to *manual* systems for some things. This is the level of incompetence that is in RBS!

I wouldn't trust a single debit card either. It's asking for trouble as there have been a few issues with natwest/rbs of late.
 
rhody said:
I can go in and collect cash - but I can't pay anyone from my account.
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Not so. You can make payments from your account by visiting a branch. I did this Saturday afternoon to make two payments to a new payee. And I only did that as I'm out of the UK this week and I didn't want to be stuck without access to a branch should this problem continue.

Some people are making a mountain out of a gnat's tit. I have two businesses and five NatWest accounts. Some transfers between accounts have gone through now but one hasn't completed as yet - it left one account but hasn't arrived at t'other.

And there's only been one payment I haven't been able to make. And that was to my son. Oh, well. Never mind, eh! :D. Maybe I should have paid him when at the branch yesterday. Ha Ha!
 
So didn't someone in the IT dept bother to do any beta testing before implementing critical changes and crashing the whole system?

The scale of this problem has yet to be realised.

I wonder if they've been hacked / virus / worm / trojan?

Surely they back up and store off site for their disaster planning?

No end in sight after 6 days????

Lots of questions to be asked here!

This is a fiasco for their customers.
 
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2blue4u said:
Some people are making a mountain out of a gnat's tit.
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I'm glad you've got your problems sorted.

Along with thousands of others, mine are a nightmare so please don't judge or assume everyone's circumstances as you would your own.
 
rhody said:
So didn't someone in the IT dept bother to do any beta testing before implementing critical changes and crashing the whole system?
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Of course they will have, that's a given.

What isnt a given is the test scenario being identical to live. Only takes one slightly older file or something silly like that to bring the lot down.

That said, where are their backup systems? Surely they should have boxes they can roll back to.

The data will be safe, they'll have many layers of data backup.
 
neil_g said:
Of course they will have, that's a given.

What isnt a given is the test scenario being identical to live. Only takes one slightly older file or something silly like that to bring the lot down.

That said, where are their backup systems? Surely they should have boxes they can roll back to.

The data will be safe, they'll have many layers of data backup.
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I think that's right. It's possible, likely, that whilst it would have been rigorously tested, the actual transactional data would be a subset, or they tested in a virtualised environment that doesn't have all the quirks of the real thing.

Maybe part of the delay was due to the time it took to roll back the database, I have no idea how big it will be but if they needed to go back in time they would need halt all transactions until both data and code were rolled back to when it worked. And then they'll have all those millions of transactions to process too. It's likely this will go on for a few days yet and being near pay day for many will mean there are probably more transactions than normal pending. Very frustrating.
 
cuthbert said:
I think that's right. It's possible, likely, that whilst it would have been rigorously tested, the actual transactional data would be a subset, or they tested in a virtualised environment that doesn't have all the quirks of the real thing.

Maybe part of the delay was due to the time it took to roll back the database, I have no idea how big it will be but if they needed to go back in time they would need halt all transactions until both data and code were rolled back to when it worked. And then they'll have all those millions of transactions to process too. It's likely this will go on for a few days yet and being near pay day for many will mean there are probably more transactions than normal pending. Very frustrating.
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That's what I mean, for example we've got reporting servers that are replicated multiple times and load balanced. You take one down for maintenance/upgrade and continue working on the others. Once work is complete and tested you make that live and start working on the others.

I'd be extremely surprised if the banking industry didn't do something similar.

But without knowing the whole storey it's difficult to say for sure what happened. No doubt it'll just get a generic "IT issue" label and make us all look like idiots :D
 
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It was changes rolled out on the Tuesday night that started it.

It can't be beyond them to duplicate the transactions on the live system and the test system in real time and cross check they behave how they should. That's the only logical way I can see you could test and develop it. If you also switch over the test and live systems running identical everything including capacity and hardware then you can switch back if you've fouled up quite quickly.
 
2blue4u said:
four days, not six. Maybe not a mountain, but......

;)
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The banking problems started last Tuesday night and as of today (Monday) are still not fully resolved.

That's 6 days of disruption in anyone's book

Nat West are still not able to guarantee when the online banking issues will be resolved - so do not underestimate or belittle the scale of this problem.

You may have sorted your issues but you have no understanding of how it has affected my finances and circumstances.
 
ding76uk said:
How many of you who are moaning (quite rightly) about this are going to switch banks from this? I am sure there will be plenty across the country, a PR nightmare.
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It all depends on how they deal with my complaints.

The large payments coming in which I should have been able to access on Thursday and Friday were not available to me and payments which should have left my account to others, weren't made.

They have promised that no-one will be out of pocket and no-ones credit rating will be affected as a result of these problems - so the ball is firmly in their court to resolve
 
It's a disgrace and anyone affected should be compensated accordingly. They are quick enough to charge when customers make a mistake.

Saying mistakes happen is no excuse when it comes to something as important as this. It's the banks that are forcing everything to go paperless and on card - so they need to get their act together as there's going to be a hell of a lot of personal credit files being messed up at the moment and a lot of headaches to follow.

I suspect the forthcoming takeover by Santander may have something to do with this but it's just a guess.
 
I read today that the system is 30 years old ..................... and still no guaranteed end to the fiasco
 
RBS has been in the process of implementing a much delayed IT upgrade for most of last and this year. As Graham has said, all the English branches (if your sort-code starts with a 16- this means you) have been sold to Santander along with their accounts. All the business accounts that were being transferred have already done so (according to the Natwest bloke I know), but personal accounts that should have been transferred at the end of last year still haven't been moved. I've had several letters apologising for the delay due to IT problems with the transfer over the course of the year (but strangely the letter giving me the option to change/move my account before it got locked into the move never arrived).

As soon as all this completes I'll be looking for recommendations for new personal and business accounts - I'm not staying with Santander once that move completes! They don't have the worst customer service reputation in European banking for nothing..
 
Only issue I'm having is they won't let me pay my Natwest credit card bill from my Natwest account. Oh well.
 
Digikat said:
Other banks are available... hope everyone gets sorted soon.
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Yes there are other banks but if Nat west car'nt tell them what i have in my account how does that help as i still wount get any money from those banks :shake:

It's a total balls up to be honest

Ian
 
Ian White said:
Yes there are other banks but if Nat west car'nt tell them what i have in my account how does that help as i still wount get any money from those banks :shake:

It's a total balls up to be honest

Ian
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:plusone:
 
Whilst this suggests that the problems are going to last all week, NatWest confirmed on the phone just there that the backlog will be over and accounts should all be back to normal by close of business tomorrow.

This must have been a nightmare for those who only bank with NatWest and live week to week.
 
gman said:
Whilst this suggests that the problems are going to last all week, NatWest confirmed on the phone just there that the backlog will be over and accounts should all be back to normal by close of business tomorrow.
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That would be great if it happens tomorrow - Day 7 of the problems.
 
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