Hester, Hester, Hester, Out, Out, Out

A NatWest Spokesman tells us:

We are continuing to experience technical issues with our systems, which is impacting a large number of our customers. As a result, money credited to accounts overnight may not be appearing on balances today.

Which is a great way to tell us about our relationship with our money, and how it is handled, but there is more. NatWest re-iterated that the problem is “strictly of a technical nature”, although it declined to provide further detail on the issues it faces.

Glad to know it is technical, not biological, but 'technical' carriues the implication, that they don't know what the problem is. However, the problem is believed to have arisen following a software update to the payment processing systems of Natwest's parent company RBS.

According to a spokesman from Compuware, whoever they may be:

The problem is that IT systems have become vastly more complex. Delivering an e-banking service could be reliant on 20 different IT systems. If even a small change is made to one of these systems, it can cause major problems for the whole banking service, which could be what’s happened at NatWest. Finding the root cause of the problem is probably something NatWest is struggling with because of the complexity of the IT systems in any bank.

All the more reason then to keep the IT department in house. However that is not how it works. NatWest/RBS have fired thousands of back room staff and outsourced their jobs to India. In modern business there are two trains of thought that exist in management.

Train A goes something like:

We employ 1,000 IT staff and, because of this, all our systems run smoothly.

Train B, however, goes:

All our systems run smoothly, why do we need 1,000 IT staff?

Unfortunately, it's standing room only on Train B, while Train A has been cancelled due to lack of demand and a bus replacement service is now in operation.

On the plus-side, all RBS Group employees are forced to have an RBS/Natwest account into which their salary will be paid. This happens around the 24th of each month, which this month falls on a Sunday, so payments would be made the following working day. Which would be today.

How's your bank balance looking today Mr Hester?