About 600,000 payments due to customers of Royal Bank of Scotland have failed to turn up in accounts in the latest technology failure to hit a UK bank.
Payments that the bank initially described as missing included tax credits and disability living allowance.
Customers missing their payments included those of NatWest and Ulster Bank, which are both owned by RBS. Clients of RBS’s elite Coutts bank, where the Queen is reputed to have an account, were also affected.
The problem became evident when the RBS Help account tweeted: “Some customer payments are missing this morning – we are investigating this issue as a matter of urgency.” The bank told affected customers who needed funds urgently to get in touch.
Some Customer payments are missing this morning – we are investigating this issue as a matter of urgency. 1/2
— RBS Help (@RBS_Help) June 17, 2015
Customers told the bank via Twitter they were worried about important payments not being made.
@RBS_Help My monthly Asda delivery has been cancelled due to no funds in account, I was relying on it.
— Joanna Lawson (@jolawson73) June 17, 2015
@RBS_Help DWP payment not due today has not been received.
— Dr Sharon Connor (@SharonConnor3) June 17, 2015
A RBS spokeswoman said the payments were not missing but were delayed. She said the computer problem that caused the delays had been fixed but did not say when the payments would be made.
The bank said: “We are aware of an issue with our overnight process which has resulted in some of our customers not having credits or direct debits being applied to their accounts. We are working to get this resolved as quickly as possible and apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused.
“To any customers concerned about the implications of this issue we advise them to get in touch with our call centres or come into a branch where our staff will be ready to help. We will ensure no customers are left out of pocket as a result of this issue.”
Technology failure is a sensitive subject for the state-controlled bank after a meltdown three years ago left more than 6 million customers unable to use their accounts.
The bank was fined £56m and its then chief executive, Stephen Hester, was forced to forgo his annual bonus. RBS has since spent tens of millions of pounds to upgrade its systems.
The episode highlighted the antiquated systems used by many UK banks to support millions of their customers’ accounts. Lloyds and Nationwide are among lenders to have had problems since, with the latter’s customers hit by online payment delays this week.
Have you been affected by RBS’s IT glitch? Share your experiences using the form below. We’ll use a selection in our reporting.
