interestrateripoff Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10491846/RBS-IT-glitch-leaves-bank-facing-1bn-bill.html Royal Bank of Scotland is likely to have to spend more than £1bn upgrading its computer systems after the lender was forced to apologise for an IT failure that saw millions of customers unable to access their money on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.City analysts estimate the taxpayer-backed lender’s latest computer blunder will leave it facing a bill of several billion pounds to overhaul its outdated IT platform. Ross McEwan, chief executive of RBS, said he set out in the New Year details of his plans to invest in new systems and blamed the latest IT glitch on the bank’s failure to “properly invest” in its technology. “We need to put our customers’ needs at the centre of all we do. It will take time, but we are investing heavily in building IT systems our customers can rely on,” he said. Great news this is going to be a govt IT disaster....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dances with sheeple Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 http://www.telegraph...g-1bn-bill.html Great news this is going to be a govt IT disaster....... So is it "over 1billion" or "several billion" ? The article doesn`t seem to know. Who cares anyway, they can just print some more up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
montesquieu Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 Have dealt with them in the past as a contractor. They have historically been a rather arrogant 'know it all' customer, nightmare for the IT industry to deal with, always right, suppliers always in the wrong (though not by any means the worst offender - the 'other' big Scottish bank was militantly 'not invented here' until they top management drove it over a cliff). I hear that RBS actually has been changing for the better in recent years, but obviously not at a sufficient pace to keep up. In retail banking (as opposed to investment banking where it's a business differentiator) IT has always been trailing edge, spend as little as possible just barely keeping the lights on. Obviously they got caught with their trousers down this time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamdamosuzuki Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 Have dealt with them in the past as a contractor. They have historically been a rather arrogant 'know it all' customer, nightmare for the IT industry to deal with, always right, suppliers always in the wrong (though not by any means the worst offender - the 'other' big Scottish bank was militantly 'not invented here' until they top management drove it over a cliff). I hear that RBS actually has been changing for the better in recent years, but obviously not at a sufficient pace to keep up. In retail banking (as opposed to investment banking where it's a business differentiator) IT has always been trailing edge, spend as little as possible just barely keeping the lights on. Obviously they got caught with their trousers down this time. Again! Banks IT is a disgrace, culturally they despise support, and if it doesn't offer leverage they resent paying for it. Expect similar issues at the other big UK banks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Tulip Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Great news for Indian IT consultancies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
interestrateripoff Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517858/RBS-NatWest-blame-DECADES-scrimping-IT-Cyber-Monday-fiasco.html RBS and NatWest blame DECADES of scrimping on IT for Cyber Monday fiasco that EMPTIED customers' bank accounts and left millions unable to access their money Still I'm sure that the managers all get their bonus for not addressing the problem for the past 20 years.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happy_renting Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Great news for Indian IT consultancies They will be part of the problem if my experience of them is anything to go by. (My experience is in telecomms and I would never have a UK Telefonica phone after what I have seen). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sour Mash Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Again! Banks IT is a disgrace, culturally they despise support, and if it doesn't offer leverage they resent paying for it. Expect similar issues at the other big UK banks. In pretty much any non-IT business, IT is a cost centre. Obviously the business wants to spend as little as is reasonable the same as they want to minimise all operating expenses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie_George Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 In pretty much any non-IT business, IT is a cost centre. Obviously the business wants to spend as little as is reasonable the same as they want to minimise all operating expenses. Unless it's for high-frequency trading! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Tulip Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 They will be part of the problem if my experience of them is anything to go by. (My experience is in telecomms and I would never have a UK Telefonica phone after what I have seen). Totally agree. I fully expect RBS to now make their problem much worse by giving a a contract worth tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, to some IT outsourcer - probably an Indian owned one - who will then hire lots of people from India to take over and modernise their IT. Most likely, it will turn out to be a disaster. Didn't they fire loads of their own in-house IT people when they almost went bust? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Tulip Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Anyhow, what does a 1 billion pound bill matter to RBS now - it is just another public sector money pit. Spend, spend, spend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marlint Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 In pretty much any non-IT business, IT is a cost centre. Obviously the business wants to spend as little as is reasonable the same as they want to minimise all operating expenses. The issue is, that banks have yet to realise that they are now effectively IT businesses. More and more of us do more and more of our banking electronically, and if their job is to provide a reliable, resilient system. Everything else is a bonus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
interestrateripoff Posted December 6, 2013 Author Share Posted December 6, 2013 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519360/NatWest-RBS-customers-face-chaos-online-banking-crashes-second-time-WEEK.html Crashed again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dances with sheeple Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 http://www.dailymail...-time-WEEK.html Crashed again? Cyber attack? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Knimbies who say No Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 Totally agree. I fully expect RBS to now make their problem much worse by giving a a contract worth tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, to some IT outsourcer - probably an Indian owned one - who will then hire lots of people from India to take over and modernise their IT. Most likely, it will turn out to be a disaster. Didn't they fire loads of their own in-house IT people when they almost went bust? I thought this had already happened with some stuff(caused problems in the summer as I recall). It's the source of most IT problems recently, a major building society has done likewise and pretty soon after the contract started they had a big issue with direct debit payments being repeated in error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WSG Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 Cyber attack? I thought DDOS attacks were easy to defend against..just keep buying more bandwidth till you out muscle the attack.. Or is that naive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomandlu Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 I thought DDOS attacks were easy to defend against..just keep buying more bandwidth till you out muscle the attack.. Or is that naive? Not entirely naive, although that approach has diminishing returns. Attacks don't just tie up your bandwidth, they tie up your servers who treat the attacks as legitimate requests that they have to respond to. You have to be able to fight back and block the requests, which is hard when the attack is distributed. Front-line accounts of coping with a DDOS make for strangely compelling reading... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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