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As RBS' ATM "Glitch" Enters Fifth Day, The Bailed Out Bank Issues A Statement

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Over the past week, various entities controlled by bailed out UK-bank RBS, focusing primarily on NatWest, have seen clients unable to access virtually any of their funds, perform any financial transactions, or even get an accurate reading of their assets. The official reason: "system outage"... yet as the outage drags on inexplicably for the 5th consecutive day, the anger grows, as does speculation that there may be more sinister reasons involved for the cash hold up than a mere computer bug. 

The Scotsman.com reports:

BRANCHES of Royal Bank of Scotland will open on a Sunday for the first time this weekend as RBS Group struggles to deal with the aftermath of technical problems that have affected up to 12 million customers. The taxpayer-owned group took the unprecedented step of extending the hours of more than 1,000 RBS and NatWest branches that normally open on a Saturday to 6pm, and opening them again tomorrow morning, as it faces an angry backlash from people unable to access accounts, withdraw wages or pay bills and mortgage payments.

 

The difficulties, which have hit NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank users, are entering their fifth day. RBS said the backlog had been caused by a “system outage” on Tuesday, and that it was “working around the clock” to resolve it.

 

Some customers said their home purchases or holiday plans had been plunged into chaos by the glitches, while others vowed to switch banking provider. Fears have been raised that thousands could be hit with penalty charges if their regular bill payments, such as for their mortgage, are affected. Consumer groups called on the banking behemoth to provide “appropriate compensation” to those customers who suffer as a consequence of the “failure”.

 

It appears the difficulties have hit hardest at NatWest, which has more than 7.5m personal banking customers. RBS Group said it could not tell how many had been affected as it was not possible to know when they were expecting payments into their accounts.

Problems are spreading beyond just RBS:

A group spokeswoman said it was “too early to say” how many RBS or NatWest customers in Scotland had been affected, but added: “The RBS problems seem to have been solved. The backlog being dealt with now has to do with NatWest customers predominantly.”

However, the problem is not confined to RBS account holders. Some non-customers are suffering as their employers use the group, and have not received their salary payments. Customers of RBS Group’s banking transaction services include the Government Banking Service, which looks after the balances of hundreds of public sector organisations, from government departments through to executive agencies.

 

RBS Group, which has 317 RBS and six NatWest branches in Scotland, said 192 RBS branches would be open today, a number of which would stay open until 6pm. Across the UK, hundreds more branches will extend their hours tonight, as well as opening tomorrow between 9am and 12 noon.

It is only logical that after Schdoinger currency, and Schrodinger Egyptian president, we no whave Schrodinger's Money: it's there... and yet it isn't.

Customers have reported a plethora of problems. Account balances have not been updated properly, meaning credit and debit payments are not showing up as quickly as they should, although RBS said the money was “in the system”. People going into their branch yesterday could not necessarily see the most up-to-date information on their balances, although staff were said to be “geared up” to help.

It is still unclear how much longer the "glitch" will persist:

Susan Allen, customer services director for RBS NatWest retail, said it was difficult to say exactly when all the problems would be resolved. She said they had been due to “an error in our system which we believe we have now fixed but we are clearing the backlog”.

The situation has gotten so dire that RBS itself has just issued a press release. The message is the usual one: keep calm, all is well.

Message to Customers from Stephen Hester RBS Group Chief Executive

 

23rd June 2012

 

The problems of the past few days have caused disruption and inconvenience for our customers as well as for many customers of other banks.

 

I am very sorry for the difficulties people are experiencing. Our customers rely on us day in and day out to get things right, and on this occasion we have let them down. This should not have happened.

 

Right now my top priority, and the priority of the entire RBS Group, is to fix these problems and put things right for our customers.

 

This is taking time, but I want to reassure people that we are working around the clock to resolve these problems as quickly as we are able.

 

I also want to be clear that where our customers are facing hardship or difficulty we can and will help them. Our staff have already helped thousands of customers to access cash and we will continue to provide this service on a 24 hour basis while we work to resolve the problems.

 

I also want to reassure customers that no one will be left permanently out of pocket as a result of this, and again, they should contact us directly about this.

 

We have double the usual number of staff in our call centres, and for the first time ever we will open 1,200 branches across the country on a Sunday from 9am to 12pm.

 

Once again I am very sorry for the inconvenience.

Luckily, Greece is (still) in the Eurozone. Or else all those trumpeted preparations for a pan-European bank run and capital controls may have been put into play.

Then again, with ATM friends such as the above, who needs Greeks bearing presents or Trojan horses?

 

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Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:02 | 2554728 knukles
knukles's picture

Corporate memory gets lost.
Is a serious, real time problem.
Some fucks take over, make some bad decisions and the folks who had the answers become nowhere to be found.

Been there, seen that happen, been one of the departees.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:15 | 2554061 Missiondweller
Missiondweller's picture

Nice "front" for a bank holiday.

The sheep who want to believe its just a "computer glitch" will get slaughtered.

These are definitely "stealth" capital controls.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:16 | 2554062 Sabibaby
Sabibaby's picture

PC load letter! What the fuck does that mean? 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:23 | 2554095 markar
markar's picture

C'mon RBS."Less talk.Make it happen"

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:29 | 2554118 Grimbert
Grimbert's picture

I'd been wondering why it had taken anyone on ZH til Saturday to notice this. Why is it taking NatWest so long to sort the problems out if in theory it has been fixed? Do they still have cheques to encode or what?

 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:29 | 2554120 FieldingMellish
FieldingMellish's picture

Waters being tested. Cue the tanks in St Louis story....

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:58 | 2554229 HardlyZero
HardlyZero's picture

Ah...the exercise.

 

We run and they roll !

 

Next stop...damnation.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:33 | 2554137 canardo
canardo's picture

According to an IT-related website, this could be an unintended consequence of offshoring/outsourcing. Apparently a couple of months ago they fired the last hundreds of people with decades worth of mainframe experience who had to hand over to some Indians and now some change blew up in their faces and they're figuring out how to fix it. Meanwhile, a backlog which has to be processed is building up and the snapshots they use for web activities are stale, a huge mess.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:46 | 2554183 QuietCorday
QuietCorday's picture

Hummmmmm....

About two months ago, I started noticing that the Natwest personal banking site seemed unusually slow. When I would logged out of our account with them, it seemed to take ages for the command to process and the log out screen to turn up.

This would roughly correlate to the same time they off-shored their IT.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:12 | 2554278 The Gooch
The Gooch's picture

Great point. What happens when outsourced functionality fails or those natives grow restless for whatever reason... "faith". No thanks.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 18:35 | 2554685 toady
toady's picture

Mainframe! That's the problem! There hasn't been a good mainframe system in twenty years!

And they let all the COBOL programmers go? They're DOOMED!

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:38 | 2554152 Grimbert
Grimbert's picture

 

Just to expain how these banks are set up - Royal Bank of Scotland is not the same as Bank of Scotland. Both are private banks, now propped up by the UK government due to tbtf bankruptcy, issue their own banknotes for use mostly in Scotland.

pretty banknotes:

http://www.scotbanks.org.uk/banknoteapp/img/rbs20.jpg

http://www.keepsakesantiques.co.uk/WebRoot/Store3/Shops/es112851_shop/4B2F/6C0B/0D87/07BF/62C1/0A0F/1118/E47F/BOS__163_20_AA_356341.jpg

http://www.banknotenews.com/files/scotland_20_2009.07.11_f.jpg Clydesdale exist too.

Going to Scotland is like fiesta time. 

 

RBS also has a few branches in England, but bought NatWest, which is HUGE in England and Wales, which in turn owned Ulster Bank, big in NI.

NI notes:  http://img3.photographersdirect.com/img/13886/wm/pd2145568.jpg

So this is huge in the UK, not just Scotland

 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:11 | 2554272 Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

Thistles on the reverse of Scots one pound coins, leeks for the Welsh!

ahhh, RIP.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:36 | 2554338 Mae Kadoodie
Mae Kadoodie's picture

Don't forget RBS owns Citizens Bank here in the U.S.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:45 | 2554182 Jackagain
Jackagain's picture

It may be time to vote ourselves out of this royal fiat system....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdhYNNFVwcI&feature=BFa&list=LLNMkLU4-mN3IcgWHaH5zLcQ

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:46 | 2554185 insanelysane
insanelysane's picture

I don't do marathons or triathalons but you can bet your ass that I will participate in a bank run.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:50 | 2554198 cherry picker
cherry picker's picture

I develop software.

This smells of incompetence, or an inside act of retribution or something more sinister.

If the IT was farmed out since the government took over, it may explain the problem, but if it was running fine before the "glitch" why not now?  Unless changes were made which a restoration would undo and there is no going back as it is a nightmare of data which takes too long to decipher.

I would pull my money out ASAP.  Forget direct deposit and isist upon checks or better yet, cash from your employer.

When you recieve cash, you know you have it.

I no longer trust banks. Information is given to goevernment and who knows who and they can take what is yours without thinking twice.  It is more difficult to take cash from your wallet than your money from a computer system.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:33 | 2554775 BidnessMan
BidnessMan's picture

Your money is far, far safer under your mattress.  As long as you don't blab about it.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 08:12 | 2555366 Cupid Stunt
Cupid Stunt's picture

Your money is far,far safer IN your mattress. As long as you don't shit the bed.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 23:26 | 2555099 css1971
css1971's picture

This smells of incompetence, or an inside act of retribution or something more sinister.

Yes, it is certainly incompetence but incompetence of a managerial level. It smells of cascade failure. Where mistakes made, failure and errors in complex systems gradually compound over time, causing failures elsewhere, often leading to the complete failure of the system. Typically due to lack of investment, loss of knowledge.

You see it in the New York blackout, the 08 financial crash as well as traffic jams, computer networks, business organisations. Anywhere there are networks of things. The less diverse the network, the more prone to cascade failure. We're currently watching the cascade failure of the banks world wide. Your common or garden cookie cutter MBA sees all the redundancy built into the network as waste and goes about cutting it out leaving you with Too Important To Fail components in the network. Then of course, they fail.

In this case I'd bet the IT organisation has been progressively cut over the last few years, cutting all the "redundant" knowledge of the systems out. The cascade failure being organisational rather than the computer systems and the current failing computer system being a symptom of the problem.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:56 | 2554217 HardlyZero
HardlyZero's picture

Bank Run ! (out of fiat cashish)

Could these 'runs' presage QEx ? 

Got Gold ?

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:55 | 2554219 tony bonn
tony bonn's picture

this outage is not an accident - it is planned to control capital......no bank of substance (as insolvent as it is) has a computer outage of this duration......if it had a legitimate outage you would see massive firings starting with the ceo....down time of this magnitude at a bank of this stature is unheard of....folks is about ready to git fucked in the ass...

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 14:57 | 2554223 HardlyZero
HardlyZero's picture

Ben over for the Timmy man!

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:57 | 2554296 TomGa
TomGa's picture

This "glitch" also hit NatWest.

 

 

Simon Read: NatWest and RBS need to get on top of this so-called 'computer glitch'

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/simon-read-natwest-and-rbs-need-to-get-on-top-of-this-socalled-computer-glitch-7876543.html

 

Following this article, there is an interesting comment about  "a botched 'upgrade' to the CA7 batch scheduling suite and the loss of the schedule" causing the problem. Commentor continues, "There is, of course, no RBS employee left in the UK who understands this any longer."

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:15 | 2554415 canardo
canardo's picture

That is indeed the most plausible explanation I've come across so far. As silly as it may sound but I can totally see this happening. A batch scheduler with 1000s of interrelated jobs which have to run in a specific order and dependencies to match is the stuff of nightmare if you lose it.
They probably have their data backed up a million times but schedulers tend to be overlooked as they're usually chugging away quietly in the background.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 17:30 | 2554566 Bam_Man
Bam_Man's picture

Yes, but think of "all the money they saved" by firing the over-paid UK IT staff and off-shoring the entire function to a bunch of Indians.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 20:54 | 2554875 SIOP
SIOP's picture

TomGa wrote: "....Following this article, there is an interesting comment about  "a botched 'upgrade' to the CA7 batch scheduling suite and the loss of the schedule" causing the problem.."

Yea, I read that also,  having previously worked with CA7 for years including recovering from bad billing scheduling, I can easily see how that could totally screw things up. Sounds like someone didnt do any testing before rolling out the CA7 upgrade. Typically what we did was "roll back" from the previous cycle (day), fix it and do it again. Unfortunately, without the people who set up the CA7 scheduling over the years and years, which often is extremely complex, fixing the CA7 schedule and recovering would be a total nightmare, including having to go back 30+ days (complete billing cycle) to recover.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:32 | 2554320 Derivative
Derivative's picture

I agree as I work in IT and have worked with financial institutions since the 80s. Heads would be rolling.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:29 | 2554767 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

This is true, but you must also know that you cannot "fire your way" to a solution to the problem, whatever it may be.

 --some other IT monkey

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:30 | 2554768 BidnessMan
BidnessMan's picture

The heads won't roll until the system is back up.  Recently sacked UK RBS IT staffers should demand fat employment contracts with golden handcuffs before they go back to work.  

Can just hear the non-IT finance types pitching the outsourcing deal to save 2 cents per share a year ago - "how hard could it be?"  The less you know about something, the easier you think it is for someone else to do it.  

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 22:54 | 2555061 css1971
css1971's picture

This is called the Dunning Kruger effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 05:10 | 2555289 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

They may be half as good, but they only cost a tenth as much!  Mo'money, mo'money!

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 22:52 | 2555059 css1971
css1971's picture

The heads already rolled. Cost cutting.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:18 | 2554422 Hannibal
Hannibal's picture

I agree 100%, the real bank holiday is just around the corner. My advise: Cash out and do not bend over under any circumstance!

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:01 | 2554240 dot_bust
dot_bust's picture

Yeah, I experienced the very same kind of ATM "glitch" at Washington Mutual right before that bank collapsed. In the weeks preceding WaMu's collapse, I would go from ATM to ATM and find locked ATM card slots, empty ATMs, and ATMs that prompted you to only withdraw $40 at a time.

Of course, any bank that uses words like WaMoola is bound to go bust.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:04 | 2554247 Piranhanoia
Piranhanoia's picture

RBS got a really good offer on email for an investment deal in Nigeria.  Since they were a little worried,  they wired all of your money to help General KokoLoko get those diamonds and gold out.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:41 | 2554321 Tinky
Tinky's picture

From another forum:

 

Unless it has changed drastically, IIRC RBS (and Natwest, they migrated Natwest customers to the RBS system after the takeover) update main customer accounts in batch (on an IBM mainframe, natch.) overnight via a number of "feeder systems" (BACS, Accounting Interface ,etc.) through a number of "streams" through their main account update system (can't remember the exact name it had, Sceptre? - something like that) which cover a range of branches. These originally reflected the distance of the branch from Edinburgh, so stream 'A' was branches in the far distant north and run first, allowing the van with the printouts to leave earliest as it had the furthest to go. Seem to recall that Natwest started at stream 'L'.

The actual definitive customer account updates were carried out by a number of programs written in assembly language dating back to about 1969-70, and updated since then. These were also choc-full of obscure business rules ("magic" cheque numbers triggered specific processing) and I do not believe anyone there really knew how it all worked anymore, even back in 2001. I remember sitting in a meeting discussing how the charge for using an ATM which charged for withdrawals could be added as a separate item to a customer statement and waving a couple of pages of printouts of the source of one of them. The universal reaction was "wow, can you actually read that?". I can't see them having mucked about with that one too much, since good assembler people are like hen's teeth and it was decidedly non-trivial to make any changes to it, but the accounting rules did change frequently in the feeder systems. My bet is that some change has resulted in discrepancies in the eventual output from these systems, and a combination of retirement and redundancies has left them with very few people who know how it is all supposed to work, and therefore identify the cause of the error and fix it. Or they might have just blown the size limit on one of the output files from the various feeder systems (VSAM IIRC, limit was 4GB, unless they moved to the extended types), or possibly the FICON cable just dropped out of the back of whatever device some of the disk volumes live on.

Anyway, very complex stuff which all has to just work together. Of course, the moral is, complex mainframe systems require staff with the skills, and in this case, the specific system knowledge to keep things smooth. The fewer of these you have, the more difficult it is to recover from problems like this.

My $0.02. Perhaps someone with more recent knowledge will care to rebut?

 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:25 | 2554435 bnbdnb
bnbdnb's picture

Ahh, just reboot the server

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:32 | 2554772 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

Cobol is actually pretty intuitive.  For sure nobody knows it anymore, though. 

If anyone running these big financial businesses had thought this stuff was at all important, they could've hired skilled programmers at good wages instead of code-monkeys for pennies.

Character is destiny.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:33 | 2554324 Venerability
Venerability's picture

RBS and JPM:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/16/us-rbs-sempra-idUSTRE61F2FO20100216

Note that ZH's good friend Ms. Masters is specifically mentioned in this release.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 01:12 | 2554342 SqueekyFromm
SqueekyFromm's picture

Well, this calls for an Irish Poem:

 

An Edinburgh bank had a "glitch"

So its customers had not a stitch

Of wee bonny money.

They thought it nae funny!

And threatened on Mondae to switch.

 

Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:40 | 2554348 El
El's picture

Corzined!

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 15:40 | 2554349 GoldbugVariation
GoldbugVariation's picture

I'm a RBS customer and experienced the 'glitch' personally.

Essentially I think it was an information glitch, meaning when I tried to look at my bank account online (or through telephone banking), some of the transactions since Wednesday were not showing up - the statement generated by the online system was missing some transactions.

However, in my case at least, the online system did show the absolutely correct "funds available".  I checked that by recreating an up-to-date statement for myself with details of all the missing transactions which I knew about.

In summary, information (including online statements and printed mini-statements) was incorrect, however, the core banking payment systems seemed to be correct.

My guess is that the people who couldn't access funds from ATMs didn't have any funds to access, but they didn't know  the reason why because their statements were not up-to-date.

I would also guess that in some cases, for example the guys whose house purchase didn't go through because their lawyer thought he hadn't received the money, stuff happened because other people did not have access to the right information.

Scary though, we all rely so much on electronic banking.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:00 | 2554388 Skateboarder
Skateboarder's picture

How much money I have (not much lol) is stored in 32 (or maybe 64) bit address-spaces on a few WF servers. That's it. If they lose that shit, all my money's gone and I'll be broke. However, if their credit card servers forget how much I owe them, I'll be spared owing em a couple thousand. ^_^

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:57 | 2554796 Umh
Umh's picture

Based on your observations I'm inclined to think that outsourcing contributed to the problem. Many core IT systems in this world were written by professionals in the 70's & 80's. The object oriented crowd is scared to touch the stuff that keeps the core functions going. While we're at it have you read all the disclaimers on the Java license?

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:09 | 2554405 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

Is anyone really dumb enough to still have funds at RBS?

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 17:25 | 2554556 slewie the pi-rat
slewie the pi-rat's picture

yes?

if counterparty fever gets any hotter buzz, we'll hafta dig out those old polyester bellbottoms and white gucci belts and go dancin

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 21:24 | 2554933 graneros
graneros's picture

Yay, we get to throw our arms up and point to the ceiling in the classic Travolta pose once again.  Polyester makes me itch but if we're going to the disco gotta be in costume.  Where the hell did I put all those gold chains. Oh shit there in a safety deposit box at RBS. Well she's a brick house... 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:11 | 2554408 Hannibal
Hannibal's picture

This is NO glitch but a test as to how people would react. The real bank holiday is yet to come!

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:38 | 2554453 jonjon831983
jonjon831983's picture

On June 2012 BanxNET became self aware.  It has determined the best way to protect the people is to not show them their account balances.

 

"When it becomes serious, you have to lie."

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:34 | 2554777 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

That's too damn brilliantly funny.  You deserve far more than the one up-arrow I could give you.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:50 | 2554477 ZeroPoint
ZeroPoint's picture

If I recall, didn't RBS have this same glitch about a year ago? Testing the reactions again?

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 17:05 | 2554508 digalert
digalert's picture

...and the NWO banksters want us all to use "electronic banking transactions"?

I don't think so...

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 17:06 | 2554511 QuietCorday
QuietCorday's picture

News on the wire is that they outsourced to India and the replacements had no experience, no understanding ... didn't even understand the concept of a mainframe.

And one issue has domino'ed and a recovery has also failed.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 17:19 | 2554545 bnbdnb
bnbdnb's picture

Ok what the hell is this and how do i stop it from breaking my browser while going to zerohedge?

 

http://edpn.ebay.com/engagement?INIT=357289083389|9778905|8971151961261094|1|10|0|1|http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-2131936754987056&output=html&h=600&slotname=2231440343&w=160&lmt=1340486316&flash=10.3.181.26&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fdoubleclick%2FDARTIframe.html%3FadParams%3DiqueId%253D1340135657071%2526thirdPartyImpUrl%253Dhttp%25253A%2F%2Fdata.cmcore.com%2Fimp%25253Ftid%25253D17%252526ci%25253D90346422%252526vn1%25253D4.1.1%252526vn2%25253Dimp%252526ec%25253DUTF-8%252526cm_mmc%25253DDisplay-_-awareness-_-network_rich_media-_-network_reassessment%252526cm_mmca1%25253Dnull%252526cm_mmca2%25253Dnull%252526cm_mmca3%25253Dnull%252526cm_mmca4%25253Dnull%2526thirdPartyFlashDisplayUrl%253D%2526thirdPartyBackupImpUrl%253D%2526surveyUrl%253D%2526googleContextDiscoveryUrl%253Dhttp%25253A%2F%2Fpagead2.googlesyndication.com%2Fpagead%2Fads%25253Fclient%25253Ddclk-3pas-query%252526output%25253Dxml%252526geo%25253Dtrue%2526livePreviewSiteUrl%253D%252525LivePreviewSiteUrl%2526customScriptFileUrl%253D%2526servingMethod%253Di%2526mode%253Dflash%2526isHTML5Creative%253Dfalse%2526isHTML5PreviewMode%253Dfalse%2526forceHTML5Creative%253Dfalse%2526adId%253D259070401%2526buyId%253D6261149%2526pageId%253D78953460%2526siteId%253D642589%2526creativeId%253D48795467%2526keyValueOrdinal%253D0%2526advertiserId%253D998766%2526renderingVersion%253D1%2526siteName%253DN3671.PriceGrabber%2526geoData%253Dct%25253DUS%252526st%25253DOK%252526ac%25253D405%252526zp%25253D73160%252526bw%25253D2%252526dma%25253D126%252526city%25253D13528%2526csiBaseline%253D1340486299358%2526csiAdRespTime%253DNaN%2526shouldDisplayFlashAsset%253Dtrue%2526globalTemplateJs%253Dhttp%25253A%2F%2Fs0.2mdn.net%2F879366%2FexpandingIframeGlobalTemplate_101_06.js%26gtVersion%3D101_06%26mediaserver%3Dhttp%253A%2F%2Fs0.2mdn.net%2F879366%26cid%3DGlobalTemplate_13401356570711340486299358%26index%3D1&dt=1340486301646&bpp=3&shv=r20120613&jsv=r20110914&prev_slotnames=1031157522&correlator=1340486301122&frm=21&adk=1200802496&ga_vid=719021819.1338653223

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 17:35 | 2554579 slewie the pi-rat
slewie the pi-rat's picture

i haven't the faintest clue!

see the zH logo in the top right of the page?  click on "ad choices" in the banner just to the left of it and see if you can kick it down a notch w/ slewie & emeril, ok?  

feel the love, BiCheZ!

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 18:23 | 2554661 TomGa
TomGa's picture

DoubleClick.net is Google's ad server. Dont' know how you're getting that code, but this plugin blocks all served ads on every webpage I visit- been using it for a few weeks:

http://adblockplus.org/en/

 

 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 17:30 | 2554568 JR
JR's picture

As they say, it's a small world. And no agreements were reached yesterday at the Euro Mini-Summit in Rome on how to end the sovereign debt crisis, where it is said the body language of the participants tell the story.

NPR’s Sylvia Pogioli reports that Angela Merkel, when asked by a reporter in Rome why German funds cannot be channeled to ailing Spanish banks, stressed the need for guarantees: “Responsibility and control must go together. I, along with the German, French and Italian taxpayer, must have guarantees from the Spanish state, not its banks. I can’t tell banks how to behave.”

Pogioli noted that a populist anti-euro sentiment is spreading across Europe. There’s a mounting backlash among several European countries and parliaments against the single currency itself, she said, and according to polls in Germany, “55% of those interviewed wished they still had the old deutsche mark.”

Or, as one Italian commenter put it: The Euro house is burning.

It’s a sentiment says Pogioli expressed by Italy’s grassroots Five Star Movement’s populist leader, Beppe Grillo, who wrote June 13 on his blog: “The EU is out of control and the euro is a box of dynamite with a fuse that is getting ever shorter. And we are sitting on top of it.”

http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2012/06/13/the_rhinoceros.html

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/23/155622572/euro-mini-summit-takes-new-focus

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 17:43 | 2554597 q99x2
q99x2's picture

Don't they have like Credit Unions or some decent place to put their money over there; maybe a vault where they live. There was a time when you might have worried about bank robbers stealing your money but now you have to worry about the banks stealing your money.

Impeach Obama because he is not responsible.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 18:06 | 2554642 Zaydac
Zaydac's picture

We used to have Building Societies in the UK which were mutually-owned, utterly dependable, and within my lifetime very local organisations which backstopped each other. Totally safe. First they merged to become very big non-local mutually-owned organisations. Then they converted themselves to banks. They bought opposition off with bribes - I received £10,000 cash from Halifax when it de-mutualised (it ended up as part of HBOS, totally bankrupt, after 150 years of financial security). Abbey National ended up as part of Santander. And so on. There are a few local building societies left - ours is the Monmouthshire Building Society - but they are now few and far between and relatively weak because the old security came from the backstopping of numerous independent institutions. Like everything else in the financial system the Building Societies have been buggered up.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 09:27 | 2555429 PulpCutter
PulpCutter's picture

America has credit unions, which are like that.

Until the 1970s, most states has local banking laws (so-called "unit banking"), which limited banks to just one city, or a small geographic range.  Local banks live and die with the local economy, which tends to focus the banker's attention on how to prudently grow that local economy, in the long-term.  It is (was) a tough job - you had to lend to support young business enterprises, but do it prudently enough to no just be throwing the money away.  This took detailed, deep local knowledge of the people involved, the local economy, state govt regulations, the particular business - and it also took a unique blend of entrepreneurship and hard-headed realism.  You had to be able to tell a friend "no", when that meant he was going to lose his business.  The bankers that survived were good at what they did, and a significant force for long-term economic growth.  They were banking at it's best: skilled use of depositors money to prudently grow local business.

Instead, America now has national (and international) banks.  Think Bank of America or Wells Fargo gives a rat's ass whether a Detroit or a Youngstown continues to go to seed?  Instead, they wager against the recovery of those local economies, using derivative instruments.

Let's all hail the benefits of less banking regulation: it's done so much for us.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 18:01 | 2554636 battlestargalactica
battlestargalactica's picture

http://olyblog.net/heads-folks-who-use-ebt-electronic-benefits-transfer-cards

"This situation was explained to me by an Oly grocery store clerk, any mistakes are my own. I don't yet see any news articles online about this and since it impacts many many people, I want to pass on the word. Some grocery stores locally have some of this info posted in their stores.

The company that got the government contract to run ebt cards (looks like that company is Hypercom - Update correction 6/21: state has contract with J.P. Morgan, source The Olympian) was supposed to have an office in every state. But instead they grouped 21 states together into one region and have only one office/center for the entire area."

Confirmed. Yeah, I'd say it's a beta test.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 18:04 | 2554640 dolph9
dolph9's picture

Glitch my ass.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 18:20 | 2554666 mendigo
mendigo's picture

Five days is a long time.
Perhaps they bounced a check?
They have short term loans that have to be rolled-over no?
Can something like this be made right?

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 18:22 | 2554668 BobRocket
BobRocket's picture

This is an ongoing problem, it started manifesting itself sometime before the 12th June, balances out of kilter, transactions not being posted correctly.

I think they noticed the problem getting worse, tried to do a rollback and have found all their backups are screwed.

 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:12 | 2554745 DoolieDoink
DoolieDoink's picture

Extract from another web site by another author:

NatWest sacked 1,800 highly-trained and experienced UK IT staff, the last having left a few weeks ago. NatWest now has virtually no staff who understand how its banking systems work in the UK or employed by it. All the 'work' and 'testing' is now carried out by 800 'contractors' in India. The replacements have demonstrated they do not have a clue what they are doing.

Who, out of the senior management who signed this off, who thought 'IT is not at the heart of what we do, let's outsource it', who decided 'these guys in India know what they are doing' is going to take responsibility for this fiasco?

If you're a customer, these are the two questions you need answered next week:

1. Are you going bring the design and maintenance of your IT infrastructure back to the UK and under your control?

2. Has Susan Allen, Director, Change and Business Services, responsible for 'Transformation Programme across the Retail Division encompassing all channels and functions. Establish Lean capability. Ensure services provided by Business Services (IT, Ops, Property) support delivery of the objectives of the RBS UK Retail, Wealth and Ulster businesses' resigned yet?

If the answer to either question is no, move your accounts to another bank next week. If you can, if the systems are working again before the next IT disaster.

PS The problem was caused by a botched 'upgrade' to the CA7 batch scheduling suite and the loss of the schedule. There is, of course, no RBS employee left in the UK who understands this any longer.

PPS Those current NatWest adverts demonstrating the ease with which money can be transferred using a smartphone look pretty ridiculous now, don't they?

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 22:48 | 2555054 css1971
css1971's picture

No, she is not at the policy level. It's the CEO, CIO and CFO that need to be replaced by the shareholders. Sorry, taxpayers.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 03:32 | 2555254 Muppet
Muppet's picture

CA7 batch scheduling.  I know all about it... but I retired in 2006.     LoL.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 19:25 | 2554760 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

 

 

I'm sorry RBS customers, our FinCEN fraud department is determining money withdrawal penalties against you. Please be patient during your banking transaction.

 

/sarc

 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 20:01 | 2554801 daz
daz's picture

Everything happening is good for bitcoin.

 

 

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 20:17 | 2554822 bugs_
bugs_'s picture

Unfortunately everything is stored in EBCDIC and is undecipherable.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 21:11 | 2554910 redjediknight1
redjediknight1's picture

I kinda glad I'm bankrupt, can't rob me of paper money anymore. I had fun with the bank's money. we're slighty affected as the better half cleans for a lady who pays her with RBS cheques, popped them into the bank last week and 2 haven't cleared outta of the 3 I've depoisted.
Well I've said to wife get paid in gold or silver but obviously that ain't going to happen.
When I tell friends and family to get their cash outta of the bent banks, they don't believe me.

Has anyone got tips on advising friends that they should withdrawn their money from banks asap??

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 22:50 | 2555056 robertocarlos
robertocarlos's picture

Believe me, friends and family don't want to hear any of it. Our ideas are just fear mongering. It's called shooting the messenger.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 21:23 | 2554931 SuccorMoney
SuccorMoney's picture

Moral of the story:  A few bucks (or quid) under the mattress can't hurt these days.

Sat, 06/23/2012 - 22:47 | 2555049 robertocarlos
robertocarlos's picture

I had a couple of grand in cash at home and then I thought this is stupid so I spent it. Now I have 800 in cash and I might add to it.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 01:30 | 2555204 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Dear RBS,

We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.

Pair'a'"Ta"s!

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 10:47 | 2555586 roadhazard
roadhazard's picture

That's what I was thinking, but the outsourcing works too.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 02:15 | 2555229 DollarMenu
DollarMenu's picture

From one of their soon to be ex-customers:

http://www.messagespace.co.uk/2012/natwest-computer-crash-social-media-b...

 

 

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 05:27 | 2555296 coltek
coltek's picture

I wonder if they tried switching it all off for 10 seconds, and then switching back on again?

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 05:28 | 2555297 coltek
coltek's picture

Duplicate, sorry folks.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 06:07 | 2555323 DutchR
DutchR's picture

Maybe a problem with Trusteer’s 24/7 in-the-cloud analysis and reporting services, and Microsoft and Diebold software on the ATM's, it's on HELL of a combo...

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 08:40 | 2555379 zippy_uk
zippy_uk's picture

Hello - Mr Hester ? Yes we have been looking into the causes of the outage.

Yes, I know you need urgent action on this. We have traced the problem to some server uprades done out

of Mumbai. It appears that the skill levels for undertaking such work have dropped since the "cost saving exercise"

you implemented push more work out there. 

You wil be glad to know we are on top of the problem now and the tranactions coming in and should catch with DR back in synch in the next six or seven days.

For the remedial action we will need to inshore the work back at a minimum cost £50m (excluding business related goodwill costs).

Look forward to presenting the plans to move forward on this when we finish with the problem some time next week

Yous - RBS Cheif Informatino Officer

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 08:43 | 2555383 zippy_uk
zippy_uk's picture

PS - please be sure *NOT* to mention offshoring to Mumbai in-case the skeptical UK public smell a rat and it sparks a technology not managed properly based bank run. Obviously any additional peak outage will delay the re-synch of transactoins further still.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 10:09 | 2555483 Zaydac
Zaydac's picture

Does your £50MM cost make full allowance for the premium they will have to pay to the really knowledgeable people who they fired and must now hire back? These guys & gals are not fools. Those who have the knowledge will drive a hard bargain.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 10:52 | 2555599 roadhazard
roadhazard's picture

So do the customers that can't get their money get paid interest and reimbursed the late fees charged to them because they can't pay there bills?

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 11:06 | 2555651 Herkimer Jerkimer
Herkimer Jerkimer's picture

Little paranoid here, but does the Royal Bank of Scotland have anything to do with the Royal Bank of Canada.

 

I remember the little mini-meltdown with another bank that sounded like the Royal Bank about a year ago, and sure enough, they were involved.

 

Herk

 

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 11:59 | 2555790 twocents
twocents's picture

What is this joke of a bank (still called RBS - should be called Taxpayer's Bank of England) actually good for?

Can be trusted not to go bust - No

Loans - No

Interest rate that keeps up with inflation  - No

Pay bills / get money out - No.

This farce of a joke of a bank should have been let go years ago and Fred the Shred paraded around every town square in the stocks.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 13:36 | 2556002 Grand Supercycle
Grand Supercycle's picture

DOW weekly chart shows uncertain market & fluctuating consensus with likely bullish pattern contained within megaphone wedge.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-24/market-analysis

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 16:40 | 2556344 CharlesH
CharlesH's picture

For the next few months to come, get and hold some cash in your hand, like 2000 (for the basic needs). Things have happened on june 21. There where similar things that happened on that day aroud the world.

Sun, 06/24/2012 - 18:06 | 2556461 gofigure
gofigure's picture

you're kidding.... right?  or are you paid to dribble such things?

Mon, 06/25/2012 - 01:57 | 2557024 Me_Myself_and_I
Me_Myself_and_I's picture

It's time to turn on Skynet.  Skynet will kill that virus.

Thu, 07/05/2012 - 20:29 | 2590613 jimmytorpedo
jimmytorpedo's picture

You sound like MDB

 

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