RBS fined £56m for IT meltdown
20/11/2014
Royal Bank of Scotland has been fined £56 million for a collapse in its consumer systems that left thousands of customers unable to access their bank accounts.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) collectively fined the bank for the software issue from June 2012, which affected more than 6.5 million customers in the UK over several weeks.
The FCAs investigation has revealed that over the weeks of disruption, RBS, Natwest and Ulster Bank customers could not access their online bank accounts, obtain account balances from cash machines, make timely mortgage payments or access cash in foreign countries. As well as this, some organisations were unable to meet their payroll requirements and RBS applied incorrect credit and debit interest to customers' accounts and produced inaccurate bank statements.
Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime at the FCA said:
"The banks' failures meant millions of customers were unable to carry out the banking transactions which keep businesses and people's everyday lives moving.
"The problems arose due to failures at many levels within the RBS Group to identify and manage the risks which can flow from disruptive IT incidents and the result was that RBS customers were left exposed to these risks,"
Sir Philip Hampton, the outgoing chairman of RBS, said:
“Our IT failure in the summer of 2012 revealed unacceptable weaknesses in our systems and caused significant stress for many of our customers. As I did back then, I again want to apologise to all customers in the UK and Ireland that we let down two and a half years ago.”
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