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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Graeme Wearden

TSB battles to fix online banking after days of disruption – business live

A branch of the TSB in Edinburgh.
A branch of the TSB in Edinburgh. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

More unhappy customers are taking to Twitter, as they realise that TSB has failed to meet its goal of restoring services this afternoon.

Tomorrow’s Daily Mail gives TSB a proper roasting - calling it the Totally Shambolic Bank.

They also flag up that TSB fears some problems won’t be solved until the end of this month (the bank’s service status webpage has more details)

I fear he’s right.... which means TSB are going to face some tough questions in the morning.

TSB has been encouraging customers to contact its telephone banking team with any problems.

So, predictably, that service is now overwhelmed by demand. Some people say they had to wait for over an hour, only to be cut off!

A late update: There’s still no sign that TSB has resolved the crisis.

Instead, the bank is still telling customers that it’s sorry, and working on a fix -- the same message we’ve been hearing since Sunday night.

It’s all gone quiet over at TSB, so here’s our latest news story on the bank’s IT problems:

I’ll be back later if there are any major developments. If TSB don’t get things sorted in the next 12 hours, there could a real backlash on Wednesday.

Anger among its customers is already bubbling....

TSB customers continue to report problems tonight, as TSB’s tech staff wrestle with its internet banking system.

There’s a strong suspicion that TSB rushed its IT migration, leading to the current mess.

Our financial editor, Nils Pratley, thinks the move was partly driven pressure to get it done before the Bank of England raises interest rates in May (which could spark a rush of customers seeking mortgage deals).

But the other driver was cost.

Nils writes:

Under the terms of its separation from Lloyds Banking Group in 2014, TSB effectively pays rent to use its old IT system. The cost of this “transitional service agreement” soared last year from £91.8m to £214m, according to the 2017 accounts. Delay, in effect, was costing £10m-plus a month.

“We would never rush if we didn’t think we were ready,” said TSB. Banking and data regulators will want to test that statement in detail.

Pester: It's a bandwidth problem

TSB CEO Paul Pester
TSB CEO Paul Pester Photograph: Sky News

TSB CEO Paul Pester is now on Sky News, discussing the IT crisis which forced the bank to take its internet banking and mobile app offline this morning.

He says that the vast majority of TSB’s services have been running smoothly since last weekend’s IT migration.

Q: So what’s gone wrong?

Pester says that TSB’s website app struggled with a “large number of concurrent users”, who tried to access their accounts on Sunday evening once the migration process was over.

We didn’t have enough bandwidth to cope, he says - so we’re addressing that problem now.

Q: Was the new platform not tested properly?

Pester says there was “extensive testing”, with nine cycles of testing before the bank took the plunge. It’s very hard to recreate how customers are going to use the platform. he says.

Q: When will your internet and mobile banking be back online?

Pester says he’d “love to think” they would be up very soon, ideally this evening (so the old target of this afternoon is officially abandoned).

But this is the biggest bank account migration Europe has seen, and he’s told TSB’s IT staff not to bring services back online until they’re sure they’re ready.

Q: Are you braced for a big fine from regulators?

Pester says TSB are talking to the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) and the PRA (Prudential Regulation Authority). Both have been “involved with us on this journey”, he adds, so they know the situation well, and they’re being kept up to speed.

Q: What about compensation?

Any customer who is out of pocket, we will put it right, Pester pledges.

He says that mortgage services have been running very smoothly, as have ATMs and credit cards.

Q: Are you going to lose your bonus?

That’s up to the remuneration committee and the board to decide, says Pester.

He ends by apologising profusely to customers, saying he understands their frustration.

ITV just broadcast more of its pre-recorded interview with Paul Pester.

In it, Pester says his IT staff have told him the online banking would be fixed by 2pm today (it wasn’t!).

Pester, though, is more sceptical so is aiming for mid-afternoon (it wasn’t ready then either!).

My colleague Rupert Jones has pulled together a Q&A on the IT crisis at TSB.

Here’s a flavour:

Why was it conducting an upgrade in the first place?

TSB was carved out of Lloyds Bank and then bought in 2015 by Spain’s Banco Sabadell. Initially, Lloyds continued to handle the IT infrastructure for TSB, but this upgrade was about moving 1.3bn customer records over to a “state-of-the-art” banking platform called Proteo4UK, designed by Sabadell.

Will I be compensated?

TSB said: “Customers can rest assured that no one will be left out of pocket as a result of these service issues.”

So that should mean people will be compensated if, for example, they incur late payments fees because they are not able to make a payment. Keep any receipts/paperwork, and visit a branch or call the bank and explain that you want to reclaim your money.

TSB IT fiasco enters its sixth day

Right, it’s just turned 6pm -- or exactly 48 hours after TSB’s banking services were meant to be working again after its IT migration.

That means we’re also close to the end of the ‘afternoon’ - which is the deadline set by TSB’s chief this morning.

Instead, TSB customers are still in the dark, awaiting fresh information from the bank, and suffering the implications of being locked out of their accounts for so long:

TSB Bank chief Paul Pester has promised that no customers have suffered a data breach.

Speaking to ITV News, Pester pledged:

There’s been no data breach whatsoever. I can categorically say that customers’ data is safe.

But what about the people who say they logged in and were shown someone else’s account details?

Pester suggests that these reports involved around 400 ‘linked accounts’, such as between a parent and a child.

TSB customers continue to report problems this evening.

Some are vowing to close their accounts and others expressing their deep disappointment with the company.

Here’s a selection of messages sent to the bank’s social media account in the last few minutes:

Summary: TSB gripped by IT crisis

Time for a quick recap.

IT staff at TSB are battling against one of the worst IT problems to hit Britain’s banking sector in years, after its botched IT “upgrade” has snowballed into a major crisis.

The bank has taken all its internet and mobile services offline for emergency repair work, after a migration to a new IT platform backfired.

Around 1.9 million customers are currently locked out, and facing long waiting times if they try to call TSB’s phone banking service.

CEO Paul Pester has apologised, admitted that the bank has fallen far short of expectations, and promised that no-one will be left out of pocket. He says he hopes the work will be completed today.

Pester, who failed to face the public on Monday, has called on customers to ‘bear with’ TSB.

He has also been heavily criticised by customers on social media, with many threatening to move their accounts.

Angry and upset customers have told us that they’re very worried that direct debits won’t be paid. Small businesses say they can’t pay their own staff, and there are anecdotal reports that some bank cards have been declined in stores.

Locksmith Lee MacDonald, who played Zammo in Grange Hill, is among the SMEs affected. He says his business has ‘literally stopped’.

MPs on Britain’s Treasury Committee are demanding action, and the bank facing a potential multimillion-pound compensation bill and regulatory fines.

In branches, some customers are being told it could be another 48 hours before they can access their accounts properly, while the bank’s website says some issues, such as one-time passwords and Isa transfers, will only be fixed “by the end of April”.

The crisis began on Friday night, when TSB began a long-planned migration away from Lloyds Banking Group’s IT systems, and onto a new platform constructed by its Spanish owners, Sabadell. The job should have been completed by 6pm Sunday - almost two days ago - but instead, customers have been unable to access their accounts. In some cases, they were even shown other accounts.

Cybersecurity professor Shujun Li has warned that TSB customers could be more vulnerable to online criminals.

TSB has also confirmed that potential seven-figure bonuses for top management are dependent on the IT migration being completed. Its remuneration committee must now decide whether this week’s debacle means the payments should be withheld (the Times did a good piece on this recently)

Updated

TSB tells us that they’re still hoping to fix their systems today, as CEO Paul Pester pledged this morning.

Customers are becoming increasingly desperate to see some progress, having been locked out of their accounts since Friday evening.

Remember, they were promised that TSB’s IT migration would be complete by 6pm Sunday, so many wouldn’t have felt the need to take out extra cash to cover the last two days of disruption.

Updated

TSB have now confirmed that multi-million-pound bonuses to CEO Paul Pester and 30 other senior TSB staff are dependent on the IT migration.

As explained earlier, the payouts, which include a £1.6m bonus for Pester, were frozen after TSB was forced to delay the move, from Lloyds to its new owner Sabadell, last year.

TSB’s remuneration committee has yet to decide whether to pay the bonuses.

Paul Pester’s protestations haven’t cut the mustard with Masterchef contestant Fiona Harris, who has lost access to her TSB account.

Bad news for TSB customers -- the bank’s online banking and mobile app is still broken.

CEO Paul Pester has popped up online again, to report that the repaid work is still going on:

TSB woes of TV's Zammo

Lee McDonald at his locksmiths in Wallington, south London, back in 2009
Lee McDonald at his locksmiths in Wallington, south London, back in 2009 Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

A former star of British children’s television is caught up in the TSB internet banking mess.

Lee MacDonald played Zammo, whose descent into heroin addiction gripped the nation 30 years ago.

Today, he runs Mentor Lock and Safe Company in Wallington, London -- but this keycutting and locksmith operation has been badly disrupted.

MacDonald told Radio 5 Live that he has two business accounts at TSB - and he can’t access either of them.

My business has literally stopped. I don’t know what money is coming in, I don’t know what money is going out.

I’m in absolute turmoil at the moment.

MacDonald says he’s currently unable to pay suppliers, and has been unable to get through to TSB on the phone. He calls the situation an “absolute nightmare”, and fears a big job scheduled for Friday will fall through.

If TSB can’t get its systems and app to work properly, he’ll have to consider moving his account.

Sue Capener, 69, who is disabled and lives on her own in Liverpool, has been hit by the TSB IT failures.

She was expecting her online food shop to be delivered but her order was cancelled due to a declined payment.

She tells us:

“I usually get a shop in on Monday but TSB wouldn’t release the funds. I can’t go out and I have no family to help me. Instead I’m sitting here answering calls about my bills not getting paid.

“Thankfully my four chihuahuas have enough food for the moment.I also saw the man next door and he was able to get me a loaf of bread from the shop but I’m getting stressed out and I’m at breaking point to be honest.”

Updated

Professor Shujun Li, professor of cyber security at the University of Kent, fears that some TSB customers could be exposed to cybercriminals by the IT chaos at the bank.

He believes TSB got its priority badly wrong -- and failed to test its new IT systems properly before migrating all 1.9 million customers.

These mistakes include (but aren’t limited to):

  • internal system testing,
  • customer communications,
  • information security management and
  • data protection.

Professor Li adds that TSB could be a prime target for a cybercrime attack:

‘Some criminals (including external attackers and malicious insiders) may have grabbed the opportunities to launch spear phishing attacks and have attempted to steal money from some TSB customers’ accounts.

‘The problems with biometrics and one time passwords (the latter won’t be solved until the end of April) also suggested that launching an attack on TSB would be easier now if no other security mechanisms are added.

‘If such attacks did happen or are happening, the chaos we have been observing suggested that TSB will have more difficulties identifying such attacks and providing evidence to support investigations by TSB itself and the law enforcement.

Salaries vanish at Ulster Bank

TSB isn’t the only bank suffering problems, today.

Ulster Bank, part of Royal Bank of Scotland, has admitted that money has been mysteriously vanishing from some customer accounts in recent days.

It is now offering emergency funds to those affected, with many people reporting that their salaries have disappeared....

The Irish Times has more details:

Money, including monthly salaries has been disappearing from the accounts of Ulster Bank customers since the weekend prompting the bank to launch what it says is an urgent investigation.

The issues are not expected to be resolved until tomorrow morning at the earliest.

The bank has told impacted customers, who find their accounts overdrawn as a result of the problems, that they will not be out of pocket once the issue is resolved. And it said it will be making emergency cash of up to €500 available to customers who need it.

Ulster Bank customers began reporting issues in significant numbers on Monday and hundreds of complaints have now been posted across social media networks from people who have had money disappear from their accounts leaving them without the funds to pay direct debits which are due.

In others instances customers have had their Ulster Bank credit and debit cards declined when making purchases.

It appears that money lodged since Friday has left customer accounts.

Reuters is reporting that more than 400 TSB customers were shown the wrong account details when they logged in after its IT migration.

Here’s the details:

Britain’s TSB bank, owned by Spain’s Banco Sabadell, took down its mobile app and online services on Tuesday in an attempt to fix technical problems which have locked customers out of their accounts.

The bank said about 402 customers on Sunday were able to see data that they would not usually see online, often of so called ”connected accounts” that family members typically use.

TSB Chief Executive Officer Paul Pester said he had worked for 48 hours to fix the problem but that the bank had to takedown both the mobile app and online banking again on Tuesday.The services should be working later today, he said.

“I’m truly sorry,” Pester said in a statement. “Customers can rest assured that no one will be left out of pocket as a result of these service issues.”

Pester has written to each customer to apologise.

TSB’s service status website shows the full extent of the IT problems - and it’s not a pretty sight.

For internet banking, for example, there are issues with one-time passwords, mortgages, savings accounts, credit cards, loans, business internet banking, overdrafts, account balances and transactions, and online messages and documentation.

I’m not sure what that leaves, frankly.

On credit cards, customers are currently unable to make balance transfers online or raise their borrowing limits; the issue will be fixed ‘soon’.

Savers can’t renew their accounts online, or transfer an ISA - this will be fixed ‘by the end of April’.

TSB’s text-messaging service is also wounded; some customers aren’t receiving them at all, and a solution may not come until the end of the month.

Updated

Quite apart from being left ‘out of pocket’, some TSB customers face empty plates unless the bank fixes its IT problems fast.

One, Rachel Pollard, says her card was rejected at the supermarket today:

Updated

TSB customers appalled and worried over IT chaos

A TSB branch in central London.

Outside a TSB branch in the City of London, both business and personal account holders were dismayed and angry at the continuing chaos affecting the bank.

One businessman, Alex, who runs a professional consultancy firm, said:

“I have salaries to pay today. I’ve had to come down here to arrange for a bulk transfer over to HSBC, and we’ll have to pay the salaries from there. I tried calling their helpline, but after a while the line just goes blank. To be honest, we’ve had grief with them ever since we were moved from Lloyds. They’re not really a business bank.”

He added that his company had not been able to see any transactions or payments on their business account since the “upgrade” began on Friday.

A personal account customer, Mac, a retired photographer, said he was “appalled” to discover that all his direct debits had disappeared.

“All my direct debits have disappeared. They were there yesterday, but gone today. And there’s something saying the last payment was in 2099. I’ve also had to change my password to get into the account.

“The thing that most infuriates me is the statements coming out of the bank. They are not being honest. They keep saying it’s “intermittent” when it’s not.”

He was heading on holiday tomorrow but had no idea if the usual payments from his account would be made.

“At first I tried to phone. I was on the line for an hour but then gave up and came down here. They have told me that it will be sorted out in 48 hours from today, but I don’t know what to believe.”

Douglas, a university student, was worried if there would be any money in his account by the end of the week:

“I have been trying to pay in a cheque, which needs to clear by Friday. They can’t tell me when the money will be through. All they could do was give me a receipt and promise that they will try to put it through later. But I need that money by Friday.”

Meanwhile Tara, who is self-employed, was visiting the bank to sort out her VAT.

“I can’t get access to my account and I can’t make any payments. I’ve now got my VAT payment due, and I can’t get any documents to give to my accountant. But they were pretty helpful inside the branch. They’ve said they will email the documents over, and that if I am hit with aVAT fine because of this, they’ll pay it.”

At the cash machines outside the branch Cathy was closely studying her printed account balance after taking out some cash.

“I don’t actually do internet or mobile banking, so this hasn’t really affected me. To be honest I wish they had made a mistake and accidentally deposited £13,000 into my account.”

Updated

It’s worth noting that millions of pounds of bonuses to senior TSB staff were dependent on this IT migration.

These bonuses were frozen after TSB was forced to delay the move, from Lloyds to its new owner Sabadell, last year.

TSB’s remuneration committee decided not to release the payments until later this year - presumably so they could ensure that the migration had taken place successfully. This included a bonus of over £1m for CEO Paul Pester.

The Times reported last month that the bank’s workers were lobbying for the bonuses to be axed. They now have a stronger case...

Sunday Times news editor Becky Barrow is also unimpressed with Pester - and vowing to move her account ASAP...

Paul Pester has told the BBC that TSB’s online banking service is being taken offline in an attempt to fix its problems - as he tweeted earlier.

Apparently things should be a lot better by this evening...

TSB CEO Paul Pester is taking a hoofing on Twitter from customers, whose patience over the IT problems is being stretched to breaking point.

One, Kerrie Britton, reports that her TSB bank card isn’t working.

A cobbling and key cutting firm in Hoxton, East London, says that several customers haven’t been able to use their cards either:

Other customers are determined to hold Pester to his promise that ‘no-one will be left out of pocket’

How the TSB crisis is hurting customers

A TSB branch.

From seeing unknown transactions to not being able to complete a house purchase, readers have been in touch with us about their experiences with TSB.

Samantha from Doncaster logged in yesterday only to find the account she was looking at was not her own:

“Yesterday morning I could see I had £200 more than what I should have. After logging off and then on again I could see the transactions were completely different to mine. After getting to work and checking the cash machine my account balance was shown at £0 and then 20 minutes later £245 - all these amounts were wrong. By the evening my accounts had vanished and now I am unable to get back in. Luckily I took cash out on Friday but it is disgusting! All I can do is hope that someone is not looking at my account like I was looking at theirs. I tried to call TSB yesterday and got an automated person speaking and then the phone went dead.”

Claire in Bristol is worried the purchase of her first home will fall through:

“Our agreement in principle was arranged over the phone last Tuesday, but it has not yet arrived and the mortgage team at TSB said they cannot access our file due to the IT crisis. We tried over the phone and in branch and no one can get us a copy. If we don’t have one by the end of the day we will no longer be accepted to purchase our home.”

Andrew, 44, who is a company director in Selby has had enough and is looking at moving his accounts:

“Both my current account and savings accounts are held with TSB and not having access to these funds is both frustrating and very disappointing.

Having been a loyal customer for over 15 years despite various campaigns from other banks offering better products and services this latest problem is the final straw and I’ve completed the paperwork to move all my accounts to First Direct. If I cannot trust TSB to provide me with secure access to my accounts why should I leave my funds with them?”

You can tell us about your experience here.

Financial analyst John Cronin of Dublin-based stockbrokers Goodbody says TSB has “botched” its long-awaited decoupling from Lloyds’s IT systems.

Cronin says:

TSB finally cut the last of its links to Lloyds last weekend, completing its separation from the group’s technology systems. Services for customers were limited over the weekend as the migration was completed. However, it is apparent that the disruption continued into Monday with customers still complaining about various issues on Monday afternoon.

Based on a review of customer complaints on Twitter, we found that several customers are alleging data breaches – with some customers noting their ability to access other customer’s funds.

Cronin thinks the mess could hamper TSB’s efforts to tap a £825m pot of government fund set up to help ‘challenger banks’ win customers.

If you’ve been affected by TSB’s online banking failure and would like to share your experiences, anonymously if you prefer, then please do so via the form here.

Your responses will only be seen by the Guardian and we’ll feature some of your responses in our reporting.

Updated

Liberal Democrat peer Paul Scriven is not impressed with Paul Pester’s explanations; he’s planning to move to his money elsewhere:

Nicky Morgan MP: This looks like an IT meltdown

BREAKING: Nicky Morgan, the chair of Parliament’s influential Treasury committee, is demanding answers from TSB over the chaos at its online banking systems following its IT migration.

Morgan has written to CEO Paul Pester to ask three key questions:

  • What exactly has gone wrong?
  • What is the extent of the failure?
  • How will TSB compensate customers, especially those who have suffered a breach of potentially highly-sensitive personal data.

Morgan has excoriated TSB for its failings, saying the bank needs to provide answers - and restore services fast.

She has also vowed to involve the City watchdog -- which further increases the chances that TSB will be fined over this debacle.

As Morgan puts it:

“The reports of unauthorised transactions, access to other customers’ accounts, and failures of in-branch services have all the hallmarks of an IT meltdown.

“This is yet another addition to the litany of failures of banking IT systems. Potentially millions of customers could be affected by uncertainty and disruption.

“It simply isn’t good enough to expose customers to IT failures, including delays in paying bills and an inability to access their own money.

“Warm words and platitudes will not suffice. TSB customers deserve to know what has happened, when normal services will resume, and how they can expect to be compensated.

“I will be writing to the FCA in due course for their assessment.”

Updated

TSB CEO: I'm deeply sorry

Breaking: TSB’s chief executive Paul Pester has FINALLY commented on the IT problems that are gripping his bank.

Pester has tweeted that he’s ‘deeply sorry’ for the mess, and revealed that TSB have decided to take their online banking system offline!

That’s an attempt to fix the problems created by last weekend’s migration to new IT systems.,

That means that TSB customers are going to face fresh disruption today.

Pester has also pledged that no customer will be left out of pocket -- which sounds like a promise to pay compensation to anyone who suffers financial damage from his fiasco.

Updated

Money.co.uk: TSB should compensate customers

Many TSB customers fear they will fail to make important payments, or go overdrawn, because they can’t access their bank accounts today.

Joanna Walters of Preston is one:

Hannah Maundrell, editor in chief of money.co.uk, says the bank has fallen short of what’s acceptable - and should compensate anyone who loses out.

“It’s frustrating times TSB customers this morning, especially those waiting to pay their staff or their bills.

“TSB are not the only bank to have these issues and our banks really need to pull their socks up because this keeps happening again and again. It’s really not good enough when so many customers are being encouraged to bank online.

“It’s worrying when your bank can’t keep on top of their IT systems and can cause lots of other problems if payments aren’t made or funds aren’t available. We hope that TSB customers wouldn’t be left out of pocket as a result of these issues.”

A TSB spokeswoman has told us that the bank still doesn’t know what’s gone wrong with the IT upgrade. And she did not know how long it would take to fix the problems, which have affected millions of customers....

Shares in TSB’s parent company, Banco Sabadell, dropped by 1% in early trading in Madrid.

Yesterday Sabadell proudly announced that the “Proteo4UK migration” was a success, indeed a new milestone in the company’s history.

The project has moved TSB away from its legacy IT systems at Lloyds Banking Group (which spun TSB off in 2013) and onto shiny new kit.

The move is meant to save around £160m per year -- money that could be put towards customer compensation and fines...

TSB’s website has been regurgitating some remarkable error messages:

[The ‘beans’ refer to objects coded in Java, the programming language used in many web applications]

TV historian Guy Walters has been bitten by TSB’s IT gremlins:

TSB could be hit with hefty fines for this IT fiasco, potentially running into many millions of pounds.

There is precedent. Back in 2014, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) imposed a £42m penalty on Royal Bank of Scotland after it suffered IT problems that prevented customers from accessing their accounts.

The FCA tells us:

“We are aware of the issue and liaising with the firm.”

The City watchdog can also censure a firm and take action against individuals by fining or banning them from working in the City.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) are also looking into the problems, and could fine TSB over the data breaches that meant some people saw the wrong account details when they logged in.

TSB’s customer service team say they still can’t provide any timescales about when these ‘intermittent’ problems will be resolved, but they’re working as fast as possible to fix them.

That’s the same message that they were tweeting out yesterday - so it can’t be much comfort for those affected.

Small business owners are also suffering from the problems with TSB’s online banking:

Amanda Verbaan-Dunn, who owns the Wilton Hotel in Blackpool, says she can’t currently pay her staff’s wages:

Nurse Gayle Elder of the Royal London Hospital found herself caught up in the chaos:

BBC journalist Simon Read has spotted a surge in people reporting problems at TSB this morning:

TSB customer Paul Bartlett reports that the system was working....but now it isn’t again.

Claire Hobson and Natalie Mansfield simply want answers - and access to their money.

TSB customers: We need help!

TSB customers are turning to social media again this morning, after finding they still can’t access their accounts.

Many, such as compliance manager Mary Marsden, have found that TSB’s systems no longer accept their login details - suggesting that the migration to new IT systems has been bungled.

The IT move began on Friday night, so some customers have been without banking services for several days.

The agenda: TSB IT problems grind on; UK public finances coming up

A TSB branch in Holborn.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

UK challenger bank TSB is embroiled in what looks like one of the biggest systems failures to hit a British bank in many years.

Some online customers have been unable to access their money since TSB migrated its systems to a new platform over the weekend, and there have even been instances wher customers have seen other people’s accounts.

As we live-blogged last night, TSB customers have been pleading for help - worried that bills won’t be paid and important transactions could be missed.

TSB has apologised - a lot! - but still hasn’t said when everything will actually be fixed. Currently, it says there is ‘limited access’ to its online banking; it was meant to come back online by 6pm Sunday night.

TSB's systems page

My colleague Julia Kollewe reports on the situation this morning:

Up to 1.9 million TSB mobile and internet banking customers remained unable to access their accounts for a fifth day on Tuesday after a botched IT upgrade over the weekend.

The transfer of banking data has plunged the bank into turmoil, with some customers saying they had rogue credits and debits on their accounts while others said they had been given access to random accounts.

Angry customers flooded social media with complaints, some saying they were unable to pay their mortgages or access any cash. Many called for compensation from the bank.

One TSB customer, Matthew Neal, who wanted to check how much he had spent at the pub on Sunday night, told the BBC he had access to someone else’s £35,000 savings account, £11,000 ISA and a business account when he logged into his account on Monday night.

A TSB spokesperson said: “We are currently experiencing large volumes of customers accessing our mobile app and internet banking which is leading to some intermittent issues with people accessing our services. We are really sorry for the inconvenience this is causing our customers and want them to know we are working as hard and as fast as we can to resolve this problem.”

We’ll be tracking the situation at TSB through the day - please get in touch in the comments below if you’re affected.

Also coming up today.... we get new data on the German business climate, Britain’s public finances, and the state of America’s housing market.

The agenda

  • 9am BST: IFO German business confidence survey for April
  • 9.30am BST: UK public finances for March
  • 2pm BST: US house price survey for March
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Homes & Gardens
Homes & Gardens
Winter Olympics briefing: Pinheiro Braathen writes Brazilian fairytale
Brazil’s president hails ‘unprecedented result’ as 25-year-old wins first Winter Olympic medal for country and continent
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
'America's Got Talent' creator Simon Cowell has given up working on Fridays because 'it’s pointless'
“I don’t think anyone should be working five days a week," the multimillionaire founder of "The X Factor" said. "It’s just pointless.”
Fortune
Fortune
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