News Anyone impacted by RBS / Natwest fuck up?

[soze]

At the moment my outgoings are 70% of my wages. So if I sat in doors and saved every spare penny it would take me 40 months to save 6 months salary. Plus I am every banks wet dream I like spending money. The £4k I have in premium bonds for my Trip to America has taken me 4 years to save.

 

[Aada]

At the moment my outgoings are 70% of my wages. So if I sat in doors and saved every spare penny it would take me 40 months to save 6 months salary. Plus I am every banks wet dream I like spending money. The £4k I have in premium bonds for my Trip to America has taken me 4 years to save.

Pretty much the story of the country my friend, it's all very well saying sit in doors and save and never spend a penny but life doesn't work like that.

Our car cost us the best part of £700 at the start of the year after Christmas so that wiped our savings in half.

 

[SilverHood]

I actually have 6 months cover, but I realise How difficult this is to manage for most people.

Same, I was living paycheque to paycheque 4-5 years ago, sometimes having to use overdraft to get by. Company I worked for screwed up my pay, so had to eat tinned tomato and pasta for 3 weeks. Started putting a little aside for a rainy day ever since.

 

[Raven]

It does highlight one depressing fact. There are a lot of people in this country that aren't able to pay their bills with even one missed salary payment.

There are also a lot of people who move any spare money into a savings account once the bills have been paid. I could move money back but if my wages don't go through, what hope is there of a bank transfer going through?

 

[Tom]

I actually have 6 months cover, but I realise How difficult this is to manage for most people.

I'm about the same. I could literally not work for months and still have money coming in.

 

[Athan]

I have an incoming payment, due to be fully cleared tomorrow (Mon 25th), but usually shows as pending, and the amount as part of my 'available' on the Saturday before (so yesterday). It wasn't showing up yesterday (can't even check today via web or android app).

This wouldn't be so much an issue if I didn't have an account transfer set up for Tuesday to move money from Current to E-Save (I keep rent in E-Save until it's due as it may as well earn a tiny bit of interest, also means I can't accidentally spend it). Yesterday web banking wouldn't let me cancel this transfer.

I was offered a web chat yesterday and took it, someone called 'Gemma' wasn't really much help. She couldn't check if that incoming payment actually was in the system, nor could she unequivocally state that the scheduled transfer would fail if insufficient funds were cleared in my account.

If I can't check online tomorrow morning I'll have to go into town and see if branch staff can clear things up.

For those not in the know I'm someone on long-term Incapacity Benefit so pretty much living month to month (I do my best to live frugally and thus have some savings that would cover about a month of expenses), i.e. the kind of person any such delays/fuckups particularly affect

 

[Athan]

Ah, now I can actually login to web banking it looks like things are sorted for me now. That incoming payment showing up for tomorrow and already counted in the available.

 

[DaGaffer]

waiting to see what happens on Tuesday payday as work is with Ulsterbank

 

[Edmond]

Managed to do transfers this morning, so it's starting to get back to normal

 

[DaGaffer]

Managed to do transfers this morning, so it's starting to get back to normal

Good, because I'm due my bonus.

 

[DaGaffer]

Problem is at the moment people just don't have the spare cash, people have used up what savings they had when they lost their jobs in the last 3-4 years, at the moment it's common just for one parent to be working and the other looking after the kids.

Doesn't really leave any room for saving money.

This. Our liquid savings have been wiped out in the last two years. Having said that, "six months' cover" for me is my notice period, so I don't worry about it too much.

 

[Chilly]

This. Our liquid savings have been wiped out in the last two years. Having said that, "six months' cover" for me is my notice period, so I don't worry about it too much.

Company might go titsup or fire you for something?

 

[DaGaffer]

Company might go titsup or fire you for something?

Or I might get hit by a bus tomorrow. *shrugs* (In Ireland you're pretty much covered for the notice period thing even if the company does collapse).

 

[Wij]

To all the senior management in banks who prided themselves by declaring:

"We are a bank not an IT shop. IT is not a core competency. You want to be in IT? Go work somewhere else."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Banks ARE IT. Banks are utterly, fundamentally IT. Everything that happens is IT.

To all the customers affected -

 

[Zarjazz]

Banks ARE IT. Banks are utterly, fundamentally IT. Everything that happens is IT.

You expect the accountants (in a bank, I'm shocked) and upper management to understand this when everything is working smoothly? Naturally once it all goes tits-up they may start regretting all that outsourcing.

I fully expect the government to give the FSA new powers to force the banks to have triple redundancy & safe guards on all payment transaction systems as soon as possible. Banks are already in the shit-house and this hasn't done the whole sector any favours at all.

 

[Mey]

Worked for a bank for nine years, never once had a positive IT experience.

 

[Jupitus]

I was affected by this, but I had to chuckle at it. Funds clearing on Thursday or Friday didn't appear until Sunday and I was skint, but checking on Friday they still managed to apply monthly bank charges making me go overdrawn

 

[old.user4556]

http://www.mindfulmoney.co.uk/12631...meltdown-blamed-on-offshoring-to-chennai.html

 

[Hawkwind]

Checked my RBS electronic banking which is offshore on Guernsey, can't send anything or do transfers right now. Luckily I did not want to anyway

 

[Hawkwind]

http://www.mindfulmoney.co.uk/12631...meltdown-blamed-on-offshoring-to-chennai.html

Although this sorry saga is a knightmare for those affected, it may force them to finally upgrade their systems. Outsourcing IT function offsite to India has always been proved to be problematic. I know people at Compaq UK who constantly come up with funny stories about it. The US Congress is even trying to curtail this by limiting the VISA's available to Indian outsource IT companies. UK should take note and do the same. IT Services has been a huge contributer the UK economy. Allowing companies to basically give up those functions and allow them to move to countries outside the EU should be reviewed. there have been numerous stories of security breaches with Credit/Bank details being sold. Once famously to a UK reporter.

Regardless of all the hype about Indian IT, it is nowhere near as good as the UK/EU/US. The education system in India simply does not output people who are able to think outside the box. It is a very parrot fashion education system. I see the results of this on a dailly basis here in the Middle East. They excel in two areas, low labour cost and being able to follow specific tasks without question. I know its awful to genaralise but when you litterally see examples of it every day it's hard not to.

 

[Raven]

They won't upgrade their systems. That would involve them spending money. More money than papering up the cracks.

They couldn't give a monkeys how this effects their customers. a couple of million in compensation vs millions and millions in upgrading IT.

 

[Chilly]

They won't upgrade their systems. That would involve them spending money. More money than papering up the cracks.

They couldn't give a monkeys how this effects their customers. a couple of million in compensation vs millions and millions in upgrading IT.

I think I'm going to change bank in protest. That's over £50k in current, savings and ISAs they'll lose (which turns into about a million they can lend when leveraged via derivatives and so on).

 

[old.Tohtori]

How is the bill system in the UK? Because in Finland you can easily call up peeps and say "well sh*t happened, i'll pay you in X time" and it's usually sorted with that.

This is why i set my bills always a week after pay, which can also usually be done with ease.

 

[Wij]

http://m.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/26/rbs_natwest_ca_technologies_outsourcing/

 

[Wij]

Although this sorry saga is a knightmare for those affected, it may force them to finally upgrade their systems. Outsourcing IT function offsite to India has always been proved to be problematic. I know people at Compaq UK who constantly come up with funny stories about it. The US Congress is even trying to curtail this by limiting the VISA's available to Indian outsource IT companies. UK should take note and do the same. IT Services has been a huge contributer the UK economy. Allowing companies to basically give up those functions and allow them to move to countries outside the EU should be reviewed. there have been numerous stories of security breaches with Credit/Bank details being sold. Once famously to a UK reporter.

Regardless of all the hype about Indian IT, it is nowhere near as good as the UK/EU/US. The education system in India simply does not output people who are able to think outside the box. It is a very parrot fashion education system. I see the results of this on a dailly basis here in the Middle East. They excel in two areas, low labour cost and being able to follow specific tasks without question. I know its awful to genaralise but when you litterally see examples of it every day it's hard not to.

To be fair, some Indian IT guys are great but it's a global market. If they are good they can get a job in the US/UK. The only way the offshore companies can keep wages so low is by hiring inexperienced or less competent people. If they get better they will move on to a higher wage. The economics of it are inevitable.

 

[DaGaffer]

How is the bill system in the UK? Because in Finland you can easily call up peeps and say "well sh*t happened, i'll pay you in X time" and it's usually sorted with that.

This is why i set my bills always a week after pay, which can also usually be done with ease.

Too many automated systems that automatically tick down your credit score etc. (although credit ratings are becoming increasingly worthless), and you haven't got a prayer of getting most utilities etc. to not send out late payment letters etc. Funnily enough your mortgage is probably the easiest one to deal with. Yes of course you can set your bills to be a week after payday or whatever, however people are still being affected by this more than a week after it first happened, and not everyone's payday is the same anyway. This particular issue was made worse because it caught people in the last week before payday when liquidity is lowest.

 

[Hawkwind]

To be fair, some Indian IT guys are great but it's a global market. If they are good they can get a job in the US/UK. The only way the offshore companies can keep wages so low is by hiring inexperienced or less competent people. If they get better they will move on to a higher wage. The economics of it are inevitable.

Is that Indian's edcuated in the west or in India? Because I've met very few Indian educated that are good. We employ about 100 here in ME and I could count on my fingers those I could rely on to do a great job unsupervised and without detailed instructions.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Too many automated systems that automatically tick down your credit score etc. (although credit ratings are becoming increasingly worthless), and you haven't got a prayer of getting most utilities etc. to not send out late payment letters etc. Funnily enough your mortgage is probably the easiest one to deal with. Yes of course you can set your bills to be a week after payday or whatever, however people are still being affected by this more than a week after it first happened, and not everyone's payday is the same anyway. This particular issue was made worse because it caught people in the last week before payday when liquidity is lowest.

Yeah didn't mean to belittle it, apologies if it came out like that

Sounds like a pretty bad system altogether, but it's probably also due to the british stuff being for a LOT larger country then a 5mil Finland.

 

[Raven]

Belittle away, the system is a fuckup.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Meant belittle'ing...belittling?...stuff...the peoples problems. I don't need to belittle the british systems, you lot handle it much better then i ever could