OK, just a bit of fun.
HSBC had a computer glitch (on Monday I think) and now Royal Bank of Scotland and Natwest (who are one in the same).
So is this:
1) Bad luck?
2) IT staff protesting against job cuts?
3) Protest groups hacking the banks?
4) Foreign countries hacking the banks?
If the banks are under attack we will never be told because they fear everyone will try to withdraw their money at once.
It nearly happened before....
www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/21/phantoms_and_rogues/
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SFAIK a cyber attack on a bank might stop people withdrawing their money via an ATM (inconvenient) or using their cards in shops but it won't cause them to lose it so no no need to panic. It isn't like Northern Rock ie imminent collapse and ensuing lemming like behaviour.
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Meldrew,
You're absolutely right, but you have a rational understanding, sadly most people haven't you've only got to listen to Jeremy Vine, read the comments on any given Daily Mail story to see you're in a minority and that most people understand zilch.
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Good point well made Rob.
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I wasnt worried, Natwest was only down a few hours and they sent out a message explaining it.
Bigger things to panic about in this world, id be more worried about Iran...
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I was in the IT game, and did a lot a work for the big banks, and I know their systems pretty well.
Firstly we had two distinctly separate failures. HSBC was a core failure, deep in the heart of stuff. RBoS/NatWest was an online banking failure only, a peripheral service.
Things in banks have changed. Not that many years ago we and the banks were obsessively anal about the 5 nines. 99.999% availability. This included plans for disaster recovery, hot standby, all sort of things, thy shalt not break the 99.999% number EVER. When the IT infrastructure cost the earth, moon, stars, and planets, and an IT budget was the size of the Greece national debt, it was easy to justify the extra cost and services and planning. We went for YEARS not breaking the 5 nines.
But there was a thing called "service hours" 99.999% was for a 7x24x365 service. We had maintenance windows. Used to be every night, then it moved to a few hours one night a week.
Then they went completely. now a 7x24x365 service is expected. Fine you say.
BUT, in the old days, everything was mainframe centric, middle out. You had control of everything, and I mean everything, from the centre, and could manage it accordingly. Now days the budget is buttons, the hardware is cheap jack crap tin bought down the market for nine bob, and every tom dick and harry in the bank buys this tin and plugs it into the system with a cobweb of damp string to connect it, to do lots of little bits of bank business.
Control is lost, standards are down the pan, and availability has been flushed away with it.
Upside is that UK banking is the cheapest in the world for its customers, we are pretty unique in the world in that you can use any cash point free of charge, and we have the most sophisticated, most widely used and adopted personal on-line banking in the world.
You may not believe it, but for personal customers British banks are the best in the world.
Price to pay, is annoying outages, BUT given the fragile nervous stated of the whole concept of banks, outages could be very very damaging.
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Interesting post as "insider' views normally are.
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Good post.
One of the reasons banks have moved from mainframes was the on going availability.
A few years ago one of our mainframe suppliers turned around and said that their would be no support for the model from next year.
As it ran our mission critical applications we had to spend millions to re-write the apps and wonder why we went Microsoft and server based.
As you said Zero, you can buy kit that runs Microsoft from anywhere.
You can also hire programmers from all over the place. There is no longer a need to hire one of the 20 people that can program Cobol 2.x for Wang at premium rates!
But, this does not mean I do not agree with you. We now have dozens of applications to do our job rather than just one big one. It is a nightmare just keeping up with the passwords!
Last edited by: zippy on Sun 6 Nov 11 at 10:20
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>> As it ran our mission critical applications we had to spend millions to re-write the
>> apps and wonder why we went Microsoft and server based.
And why availability is down the pan. For years Microsoft wondered why windows NT was never adopted in mission critical workloads. "Its much cheaper" they said. "It is we said, but you issue fixes every day, and it needs to be rebooted to apply them"
"Is that a problem" they said.
We laughed.
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Spanish on-line banking for personal customers is pretty good.
We could buy groceries using a debit card and by the time we arrived home the payment would be showing on our account. Here it takes at least one day and sometimes two, before a debit is shown. (HSBC)
Mobile phones could be topped up on-line directly from our bank account, too.
Does any UK bank offer this latter service?
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Yes you can even top up your phone at any cashpoint.
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Yes - but from one's own house - on-line and directly debited from one's account?
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Why wouldn't you do that from phone company's site - they all offer on line top ups
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I didn't know that; thanks - but why, with PAYG phones would we ever log on to Vodaphone's site in the normal way of things?
Much easier to do from your bank's site when logging to check one's balances.
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>> Yes - but from one's own house - on-line and directly debited from one's account?
But why would you want to, when you can do it from your phone? Directly debited from your account, without even having to log onto your pc.
Dial one 4 digit number, enter the last 4 digits of your charge card and Bingo!
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I'll investigate, but I don't particularly want Vodaphone to have my debit card details logged.
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Paying online from your bank means they would have your bank account number and sort code logged. Your stuffed either way.
The security services would love (and have tried - secretly) to have top up phone cards banned, so that phones can be tracked back somehow.
But all the time you can buy a top up with a ten pound note, means they are still anonymous and relatively untraceable.
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>> Spanish on-line banking for personal customers is pretty good.
Customers at the ex British Banks who were subsequently taken over by Santander would happily string you up from the nearest Light pole if you suggested that to them.
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I would be the first in the queue - Santander and their associated companies are pretty poor.
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Mrs RR has just opened a basic bank account with Santander, she just wanted somewhere to put her personal money and get a debit card. The performance was unbelievable, three identical letters arriving in the same post asking for things we had already sent to them, followed by another letter telling her they they could not procede unless she sent them another proof of identity - in the same post as her debit card and a letter congratulating her on her account now being active!.
We would never dream of having our main account with them, after what I've seen I wouldn't trust them with critical things like direct debits and the rest.
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WE used two banks during our time in Spain.
Banco Atlantico - excellent in every way, but taken over by Banco Sabadell (their Solbank brand for expats!). Service went down the pan, so we changed to one of the, now beleaguered, Cajas or savings banks.
Nice people & never any problems,
Santander would never have been on my list - even in Spain!
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>> Customers at the ex British Banks who were subsequently taken over by Santander
>> would happily string you up from the nearest Light pole if you suggested that to them.
Too right I would.
Satan's Bank. Not fit for purpose.
I only keep the account open to annoy them.
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I spent the best part of an hour in a Santander Branch trying to retrieve money from a dormant account that had been thro 2 takeovers, (IIRC, it started life as a Bradford & Bingo Account). During that time not only was I told a pack of lies, (different lies from different people), but witnessed many disgruntled customers trying unsucessfully to effect the simplest transactions. They represented about 50% of the Bank visitors! In each and every case, had I been the unfortunate punter, I would have closed the account on the spot.
Never again will I enter their premises, physical or virtual!
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Banked with Satander since it was Abbey National Building Society. It used to be a good bank with friendly staff in a branch near the office.
Last week the phone rang. An automated voice told me it was a message for my partner from Santander's fraud department regarding our joint account. It asked us to ring back on an 0845 number. Called it back repeatedly only for it to either fail to connect or cut off after two minutes of (rather nice) trumpet music.
In a bit of a panic I rang the usual number 08459 724724. The staff there are at least now in the UK but refused to deal with me as the supposed issue was on her card. Argument that I was jointly and severally liable for the account and that she was in Sheffield seeing our daughter (almost certainly it was the out of pattern hotel and restaurant bills thsat triggered the alarm) cut no ice. She eventually got through but I've still to discover the costs of the out of bundle calls she had to make on her mobile.
And there was a stroy in the Grauniad a few weeks ago where, on production of a death certificate and will branch staff refused to disclose details of the account because they needed the (deceased!!) acount holders written consent.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sun 6 Nov 11 at 13:58
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These numbers may help, if this ever happens again
www.saynoto0870.com/companysearch.php
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>> many disgruntled customers trying unsucessfully to effect the simplest transactions. They represented
>> about 50% of the Bank visitors!
I went in to my local newly-rebranded Santander last year to ask about opening a basic current account. During my 20-minute wait to see somebody, almost every customer going to the tills was getting frustrated and irate about one thing or another. I felt quite sorry for the girls behind the counter.
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i have an RBS current account and yesterday went to use an atm which said i want authorised to use a non rbs machine.
apparently im on a basic account that now bans all other atms except rbs. if i want to use other machines i must upgrade to another account and pay £8 per month
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>> apparently im on a basic account that now bans all other atms except rbs.
>> if i want to use other machines i must upgrade to another account and pay £8 per month
Perhaps the days of "free" personal banking in the UK are numbered.
Got to find a way to keep the bonus culture funded, I suppose....
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I'd check that out. According to their website you should be able to use any UK ATM displaying the visa car free of charge for their basic "Select" account.
www.rbs.co.uk/personal/current-accounts/g1/compare-our-range.ashx#none
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I think the issue with non RBS cash machines applies to this account:
www.rbs.co.uk/personal/current-accounts/g1/other/basic-account.ashx
It's been covred quite widely in the finance pages of the papers.
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why would you have such a basic account that costs nothing, when you can have this
www.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/g1/select-account.ashx
which costs nothing.
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The RBS select account is also free and is basically the same as the NatWest account. The very basic account offered by RBS and identified by Bromtonaut are really designed for customers who for one reason or other would not qualify for these accounts. The government effectively pressured the banks to provide such basic accounts for those who would not otherwise be sough by the banks as customers. The banks do not go out of their way to retain such accounts.
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Banking Conspiracy - Meldrew
