Natwest/Royal Bank of Scotland Have Not Been Processing Payments for 48 Hours Now

My info is that not all banks will be open, they are already divvying who will open on sunday, and it may not be your local branch, nor will it necessarily be in small town. Thing is not so many years ago, every branch had to balance their books on the day manually, using all the day's transactions. My branch clerk today said that it will take them three or more days to do the same thing, as from today never mind the last passing days thinking time. Yet, as far as I know, there is no exponential growth in customers in my area. So far, people have been pretty understanding, but it won't last given the magnitude of the problem, the cause of which is vague and unexplained. Smurfy, @ 01:26, 23/06/12

reply to post by combatfoo2000


If something goes wrong, you'll see it on the news? Oh now I trust the news. Thanks man.

reply to post by autoprotolysis


We dont see everything that is going on! The News here in the US does not cover everything! CNN plays the same thing over and over. Fox is just a bunch of idiots. MSM is ok. The BBC is OK. Local News here in America does not cover anything but local. I would atleast like to know what is going on in other States here in the US. I would also like to know what is going on in the world. To sum it up..Our News here in the US is horrible!

Originally posted by starseedflower
We just got a SMS message from our bank RBS that no account updates will happen till Monday the 25th. It never happened to us before.

Well no updated balance this morning, withdrawals show but money paid in did not update this morning for me (RBS).

Will be going into the branch later.

This is still not fixed, if it is not fixed by Wednesday, I will have a tonne of direct debits and not enough funds to pay them.

Every single one of my friends and family are affected by this too and some of them live in the other end of the country from myself.

reply to post by Mantaray

As far as I know D/D and S/O still go out regardless of what account balance says (prividing money has been paid in from your wages).

This is not the case with RBS, bills are not coming out of accounts a few of the people I know have had letters about missed payments from their mortgages etc.

This is despite RBS telling them it would be paid and not to worry.

Originally posted by michael1983l

Originally posted by fiflad

Originally posted by Extralien
reply to post by combatfoo2000
THREE seperate banks sharing the same problem????

No, only one - RBS owns and operates Natwest and Ulster. Ulster even has the same logo.

They are still 3 seperate business units with 3 seperate sets of infrastructure with only some of that shared.

Actually, aside from the Branches, their infrastructure and back office functions are incredibly intertwined. If a problem affects one, you can bet it'll affect the other two. Same with HSBC and First Direct. Two separate banks, but their actual infrastructure is one and the same.

While a bit of a pain the arse and playing into the hands of the crazies round here predicting impending doom, this sort of thing is not uncommon.

The same thing happened to HSBC last year and I could get no cash out for 48hours, on a weekend too! This wasn't because HSBC was "going bust" as it is probably the most solvent bank in the world, but a simple technical problem.

You will probably find that their systems will have redundancy built in, but if they are anything like my employer, redundancy loss is treated as a minor issue. Problem arises when you lose the backup to that system you lost, then your up crap creek. I reckon, in a roundabout way this is what happened to RBS. A cascade of small glitches that caused a wider issue. It is unlikely to have been an single fault that caused this.

Didn't know anything about this till Saturday afternoon.
Daft thing is OH checked the balance Friday afternoon and the payment we were expecting was there, by the next day it had not only disappeared, but according to internet banking didn't exist!. So much for the twaddle of banks remaining open, mine was shut!.
Still shafted to the tune of £200 today.

One is not amused.

Originally posted by Suspiria
Didn't know anything about this till Saturday afternoon.
Daft thing is OH checked the balance Friday afternoon and the payment we were expecting was there, by the next day it had not only disappeared, but according to internet banking didn't exist!. So much for the twaddle of banks remaining open, mine was shut!.
Still shafted to the tune of £200 today.

One is not amused.

I visited the branch (RBS) and they are allowing a maximum of £150 emergency cash. They are also saying direct debits etc are coming out of your account but are not updating yet, this is lies as I have more than a few friends who have had letters this morning about missed payments from other companies.

I think there is now a real risk of a run on RBS and Natwest now after hearing opinions of others and reading comments on the news outlets. There are still a lot of people unaware of this problem as they have not reached pay day yet but will be this week.

As for sympathy from businesses, I called my mortgage provider and they are having none of it, they are saying the problem is now fixed so payment is due and charges will be applied if payment is not made.

A simple IT glitch does not do it for me either, I have worked with Abbey National and Bank of Scotland and those banks have dedicated buildings with separate servers for an event like this, every bank has this for system issues, so unless they stopped this practice over the last five years it will still be in place.

Originally posted by XXXN3O
I visited the branch (RBS) and they are allowing a maximum of £150 emergency cash. They are also saying direct debits etc are coming out of your account but are not updating yet, this is lies as I have more than a few friends who have had letters this morning about missed payments from other companies.

To be fair, those letters must have been sent Friday or Saturday, when RBS were in the middle of the issue. It is unfair to say that it is "lie" as they are probably not lying about DD's going out TODAY.

Originally posted by XXXN3O
I think there is now a real risk of a run on RBS and Natwest now after hearing opinions of others and reading comments on the news outlets. There are still a lot of people unaware of this problem as they have not reached pay day yet but will be this week.

How can a bank run happen when you can't withdraw any cash?

Originally posted by XXXN3O
As for sympathy from businesses, I called my mortgage provider and they are having none of it, they are saying the problem is now fixed so payment is due and charges will be applied if payment is not made.

Then, as RBS have said, they will compensate for this and, to quote them, "no customer will be left permanently out of pocket as a result of our error"

Originally posted by XXXN3O
A simple IT glitch does not do it for me either, I have worked with Abbey National and Bank of Scotland and those banks have dedicated buildings with separate servers for an event like this, every bank has this for system issues, so unless they stopped this practice over the last five years it will still be in place.

Dude, 5 years ago we ran a clean network and dealt with resiliance faults overnight. These days, money is tight so unless there is an immediate impact, faults are dealt with during NWH when it is cheaper. I suspect that this ussue may be a result of them deferring several "minor" resiliency faults which bit them on the arse when a final straw, as it were, broke the camels back..

Engineers don't run networks any more mate, beancounters do. And as far as they are concerned, maintainence is an expense.

reply to post by stumason

How can a bank run happen when you can't withdraw any cash?

Obviously that cannot happen right now but after this problem is resolved it can and I believe there is a risk of it happening.

If you call a bank on Wednesday and they tell you to wait till Thursday and things will be fine. Call them Thursday and get told to call on Friday. Call on Friday and get told Monday. Call on Monday and get told Tuesday. You are told everyday that your bills will be paid too but letters start coming in from these businesses with charges and warnings of default measures. Do I need to keep going to seriously explain why I am saying they are actually lying and using the word lies is perfectly justifiable in my eyes unless the justification of the english language was changed overnight or maybe banks tell the truth even when they lie?

I do not see the point in responding to the rest of what you have said not because I cannot but there is no point. Been there before on different topics and your personality is far too different from myself which is fine and I respect that.

Certainly even in the online updates - one moment it's fixed, next minute there are still problems.
One doesn't have to be a crazy tin foil hat conspiracy theorist to see that there are all sorts of possible explanations for this other than what we are being told.
Whatever, the lesson here is - if you can - keep a reserve of cash at home, keep stocked up with basics and spread cash around different banks.
And again, whatever caused this, be aware that this could lead to a bank run on those banks including significant account closures.

Originally posted by XXXN3O
Obviously that cannot happen right now but after this problem is resolved it can and I believe there is a risk of it happening.

I don't doubt that customers may well leave, but I seriously doubt a run will happen as there is no risk of the bank collapsing. People's money is safe, even from themselves it seems!

Originally posted by XXXN3O
If you call a bank on Wednesday and they tell you to wait till Thursday and things will be fine. Call them Thursday and get told to call on Friday. Call on Friday and get told Monday. Call on Monday and get told Tuesday. You are told everyday that your bills will be paid too but letters start coming in from these businesses with charges and warnings of default measures. Do I need to keep going to seriously explain why I am saying they are actually lying and using the word lies is perfectly justifiable in my eyes unless the justification of the english language was changed overnight or maybe banks tell the truth even when they lie?

Seems to me like they have a major software issue, reading the latest on this. That sort of thing is not easy to get to the bottom of while at the same time being very high impact. I can see why your frustrated however.

Originally posted by XXXN3O
I do not see the point in responding to the rest of what you have said not because I cannot but there is no point. Been there before on different topics and your personality is far too different from myself which is fine and I respect that.

Totally lost why "personality" would come into a discussion about the bank, considering the rest of what I wrote was of a technical or factual nature.

I had the exact (and I mean exact) same issue last year with HSBC. No money for the whole weekend due to a server issue, it is just a fact of life and the bank reimbursed any charges I incurred as a result.

There is no reason to believe RBS won't do the same, especially to save customers from leaving. I say use this to your advantage and get them to cough up. They want your business, you don't need them.

Well I have almost emptied my account with them now, except for enough to cover this months DD's. This is because even after I explained to them that I had certain insurance policies etc, which auto cancel if even a single payment is missed FOR WHATEVER REASON, even if it is not my fault, they said their hands were tied. My next batch of cheques is ready to pay in, as is my monthly salary, but they will be going into a different bank altogeather.

I have been planning to ditch them for the last year of so anyway, Natwest have been next to useless for me over the past few years especially, they deserve to lose customers. I do however feel sorry for anyone with a mortgage with any of the affected banks, if they do go down, a lot of people will have house issues. I have used ALL of the money in my account to fully pay off my mortgage ( with another Bank ), it seems that this is only the beginning, I am sure it will get worse.

reply to post by XXXN3O


Explanation: Uhmmm?

Recently my gf blew up the engine in her car and she was given the run around by the mechanics UNTIL I told her to ask them "When is the LATEST you WILL have this FIXED by?" and that makes THEM realize that after that time period has expired ... that they wont be getting any more bu$ine$$ from that customer ever again.

Personal Disclosure: Give that a try and please let ATS know how it goes ok! I hope this helps.

Can't say anything for Natwest or RBS but Ulster Bank is now saying this may not be sorted until the end of the week .

Though the technical issue which caused the original glitch last week has now been identified, the bank said it had encountered “a significant number of minor issues which require manual intervention” in order to work through the backlog.

These issues had delayed the process of working through three days’ worth of unprocessed payments – and given the volume of new payments which could arise in the coming days, the bank now says it will be “towards the end of this week” before its operations return to real-time.

As of today my funds that were meant to be in on Thursday have still not been credited to my account nor have any of my standing orders gone out.

On top of that now this little gem:

The bank has also warned that access to its ATM services and internet banking may be interrupted during the disruption...

The Journal

Well I think I'll be taking my money out and going to HSBC or a building society.

F*** Natwest and RBS group.


I hope a load more people do the same.


And yes, I know this will be a bad thing and blah blah but seriously.... F*** 'em.

reply to post by blupblup


HSBC is a good bet matey. About the only major bank not to need a handout recently, Barclay's being the other which didn't use state money but did get a huge chunk of cash from some Arabs. Excellent service from them, even during my disruption last year, they were very helpful indeed.

reply to post by stumason




Well I usually hear good thinks about them so yeah, cheers mate.
Tomorrow I think I shall go and sort it out.

It's just a hassle as obviously everything is tied to Natwest.... such a mission to change it all over.


But needs doing I think

Originally posted by stumason


Seems to me like they have a major software issue, reading the latest on this. That sort of thing is not easy to get to the bottom of while at the same time being very high impact. I can see why your frustrated however.

Wow, what BS you are spreading.

Software issues aren't hard to fix! Software should work the same from day to day. Software doesn't break. People in IT are smart enough to run the old system along side the new system when new systems are put into place. Glitches sometimes do happen but they can be identified and fixed pretty fast.

Since 2001 and even more so since 9/11, these types of problems are taken very seriously and are planned for by companies. Auditors can in once a year and if there aren't adequate backup systems and plans, top management will be notified.

No bank is going to announce they have a cash shortage. This would only cause a bank run. Instead, it's to their benefit to say their is a software problem until there is enough cash.

The software problem is the software can't create cash.

reply to post by blupblup


Unfortunately we don't really have much choice regarding banks in Ireland so I will be staying with Ulster Bank (for now) as they're the only one in the country that has 'free' banking ie. no bank charges. Plus, I haven't really been inconvenienced by this whole drama either, but I am annoyed and disappointed at the way it's been handled. Time to start looking into the online banks as I haven't actually been in the branch since I opened the account 2 years ago.