Forumite Members › General Topics › Tech › Software Talk › TSB Cut Over
- This topic has 21 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 10 months ago by
Richard.
-
AuthorPosts
-
April 30, 2018 at 10:02 am #20228
I am slightly surprised that no one has commented on the TSB fiasco over their cutover to a new system a while back. Having been involved with cutovers in the past I took a passing interest but so far no really hard evidence has emerged. Like the other ‘soft’ outside commentators I was surprised that they cut over so much in one go, but I was even more surprised that they do not appear to have done enough of what we used to call flood testing. Even with that some lateral thinking tests could throw up the odd surprise. I had a thought shortly before one cutover – I wondered what could happen in the very predictable surge of traffic. I heard fuses pop all the way along the long thin building in question. The problem was fixed minutes before that cutover – though probably about 6 hours before any real risk of the demand rising.
The back end is said to be perfect, though that may or may not be easy to prove. The suffering punters ‘see’ only the front end. I wonder if TSB had the metrics to tell them the normal demands and whether anyone had the skills to understand the short term stimulus that an event like this can cause. I know one country that was badly caught out by both. They under recorded their normal demand capturing about 9% with the remainder being unrecorded. The stimulus arising from the use of a more reliable functioning system was almost completely ignored. The result I predicted to the system builder, (causing them ‘noticeable’ concern) duly came about a little while later when that one tried to go live. At least the system builder was then ready with answers and proposed solutions when the nasty stuff hit the fan.
April 30, 2018 at 12:05 pm #20231I have not seen a technical analysis of it so far. From reports the whole system did not go down but was extremely slow and customers were ‘tined-out’. One set of reports hinted at a somewhat panicked reaction by IBM so maybe it was an upgrade of their hardware that went wrong.
The ‘cutover’ itself was almost an in-house move to the Spanish owner’s system albeit modified to comprehend UK banking regs. Although the devil is in the detail that should not have caused the system to limp although it may have affected security settings.
April 30, 2018 at 1:29 pm #20235I am a customer of TSB: the problem was caused by Sabadell the Spanish owner trying to fit their vaunted new Round Peg system into a British Square Hole.
That’s my conclusion.
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.April 30, 2018 at 1:32 pm #20236The allegation is that the back office part is not (yet) causing problems, but that the public interface part is the area for concern. Reports talk of both errors, and failures to process within an acceptable time frame, this might also include time outs. Whichever part or parts is/are in trouble it does speak to not enough testing and understanding of the issues. The old systems did a Topsy, they just grew, dropping in a new system to hit the ground running is a whole different can of worms. We can speculate on the semantics, but it has not been a great advertisement and will make others stop and think about their situation for a very long time.
Update: apparently back office functions such as standing orders direct debits and the like are ‘fine’ but 50% of customers’ access attempts are still unable to get to use internet banking today, hinting at some fairly acute issues wherever they are. While it could be almost anything causing them problems but it is clearly not what anyone would have wanted. Reading between the lines of dodgy reports is a dangerous game but online transaction processing does appear to be road blocking for some unexplained reason.
April 30, 2018 at 4:50 pm #20239I am not considering switching atm: we have a really good branch in Louth, albeit rushed off their feet right now, as I suspect are most local branches. The offer to raise the account interest rate to 5% again (from 3%) is a bit too tempting.
The Louth branch staff are really good, the feel is akin to when branches put the customer first. A bit 20th Century, in fact.
Lions led by Spanish donkeys…
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.April 30, 2018 at 5:34 pm #20241Bob, probably more accurately described as a British Black Hole. The British banking industry is notorious for just adding functions and not redesigning the system. The Lloyds back end is probably based on 70’s mainframes with subsequent bodges and add ons. The people who knew how it all worked are my age and long made redundant and their jobs passed to India.
I suspect all the testing in the world wouldn’t have stopped this happening. When you have to deal with combining old and new it’s always a problem.
April 30, 2018 at 5:44 pm #20243Well I just accessed my TSB online account for the 3rd time this week. This time absolutely no problems at all. I printed off a full month and checked all payments in and out: all payments OK. No problems in Savings account or Credit Card. Logged out, logged back in, no problems.
I don’t know if I am one of the lucky ones, but what I have had, is the patience to keep coming back. People on MSE are flying into a rage instead of giving it time. Some are expecting compensation when they have no explainable losses. There are those with actual losses and TSB are giving them recompense. The bank knows it has made a horrendous error, but some complaints are farcical.
That heightened sense of entitlement, which too many people seem to have nowadays.
EDIT: you posted while I typed, Dave. I understand your point of course: same thing happening in every industry. Not enough experienced, properly trained IT staff. I just wonder, if the new system beds down and works well, I hope it becomes really efficient and forces others to invest in new systems themselves? One can but hope I guess. But the TSB site looks ‘cleaner’ and actually worked much faster today than before the change, so perhaps there is real hope.
Optimist, Moi!
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.April 30, 2018 at 6:57 pm #20247Dave, my understanding is that the new TSB system was just that, a ground up new software system on new hardware to work through the next part of the 21st century and be right away from the legacy stuff. TSB had no legacy to start with as they rented capacity on the Lloyd’s system, so it would make no sense to start their new world with a 1970’s era depreciated hardware unless the Spanish owners palmed something off onto them, which I strongly doubt.
Bob I am glad that is now working OK for you, I used what is now our local TSB branch for a couple of executor accounts in the recent past and do agree the staff were impressively helpful. Far better than NitWit bank who could not open the requisite executor accounts for deceased customers who had used them for well over 60 years. That was after they had previously carried out some illegal actions in the past on one account, – defying a court order is not the wisest thing in the world. I had thought about transferring an account to TSB in the recent past. If they can sort out the present issues, I might resurrect that idea, a modernised computer system might avoid the upcoming issues that all of the banks are going to face, moving away from their legacy iron.
I plan to retain at least two banks for the foreseeable future to provide some sort of insurance.
I agree with the comments about the sense of entitlement, TSB have accidentally screwed some customers over badly and they do need recompense for out of pocket costs. However, that is not the same as “I could have been affected, but wasn’t, so give me the money anyway”.
To be honest, I would probably not have been affected had I been a customer, I have never used online banking and do not appear to have a need to start it now. Note, I did not say I never will, circumstances change, I am old enough to know that.
April 30, 2018 at 8:12 pm #20250Internet banking is the way to go Richard. Life to busy to have to go into branches. It’s a rare occasion I ever go to the bank.
It makes micro managing your accounts so easy, And passing money around a doddle.
April 30, 2018 at 8:24 pm #20252I’m with Steve on the online banking, I can check in seconds how much £ I have, or not.
Couple that with Google Pay and it’s very detailed info of your spends (time and place) and it’s so easy to keep tabs on your finances.
As an aside I switched from NatWest to First Direct around November last year, £125 paid into my account within 3 months. ?
May 1, 2018 at 8:36 am #20260I understand internet banking’s usefulness to some, but I have always kept records; since 1975 our accounts are shared, (with one exception for tax purposes), so we always know our various balances or liabilities. I visited one branch 200 miles away >10 years ago – to deal with my father’s account, The other is ‘only’ 40 miles away but not visited this millennium. We are clearly atypical; my point was that if internet banking access was interrupted for a few days we would be unlikely to notice, let alone be affected.
We value a choice of different payment methods in these in outage prone times. We still keep several different credit cards, though two are largely dormant, perhaps I should give them a ‘heartbeat’ transaction. Accounts are settled via the internet on presentation, it saves postage. The bottom line for us is that we still value paper and are pretty hot on paper receipt retention.
May 1, 2018 at 9:36 am #20261We still keep several different credit cards, though two are largely dormant, perhaps I should give them a ‘heartbeat’ transaction.
@sawboman – With the bank and Credit card companies view on “catching” fraudulent use before it arises, you may well have difficulty in that.For years, because we were in a cash business, our credit card use would be for buying holiday flights or appliances for the home or something where we needed the extra protection they provided, so it’s use was intermittent and for large amounts only, and mostly paid off before accruing interest.
When we stopped work in ’08 all that changed. However the bank by then had fraud on it’s radar and under their purview to actively combat it. We would get “transaction denied” events and fraud alert texts on our mobile, despite having a stupidly high credit limit.** It’s use became even less when we started online banking. So much so that somebody who had a memory for phone numbers that had been a cause for amazement at work for 40 years, forgot their PIN when in Spain last week – much to my embarrassment and the wife’s annoyance – but the least said about that, the better.?? Age could also have something to do with that, but again, the least said about that………………..!!
You could well have some fun/problems with your intended heartbeat transaction, but good luck anyways.
**It seemed their view was if you spent large and paid it straight back you were deemed truly creditworthy – we didn’t pay much attention to it until it exceeded £10k!! It’s now sensibly placed far under that limit.
May 1, 2018 at 9:46 am #20264Internet banking is the way to go Richard. Life to busy to have to go into branches. It’s a rare occasion I ever go to the bank. It makes micro managing your accounts so easy, And passing money around a doddle.
Fully agree with Steve on that one – the only time I visit the bank is when I get a cheque ( rare in itself these days) – I’ve got one sitting on my desk here along with some early decimal coins I want to swap, and an “old” £1 coin someone slung in my change the other day and a Scottish £1 note.
Online banking has really simplified our lives – all transacted through Kaspersky, which sometimes plays up and introduces a hiccup, but otherwise has been solid.
May 1, 2018 at 11:38 am #20268As I said, I don’t use branches, one not since the 1990s though I do use post rarely or the PO to pay in cheques. My ‘spare’ credit card accounts do get ‘time to time’ use though with everything else going on time slips by. One has been fallow for longer than I thought, the other about 12 months. I might ‘give them air later today’ and see what happens. The two heavily active ones get cleared every month, with December being a biggie, due less to Christmas and more to a couple of operations – they ain’t cheap.
May 1, 2018 at 2:12 pm #20273” Online banking has really simplified our lives – all transacted through Kaspersky, which sometimes plays up and introduces a hiccup, but otherwise has been solid. ”
Completely agree John, but have never had a ‘hiccup’ with Kaspersky Safe Money. I use Firefox (just updated to 59.0.3) and Private Browsing, with the Kaspersky Safe Money inside that. Whilst I have been in recovery at home, there is no way I could have got into branch. According to family members and TSB customers, our normally quiet Louth branch has been thronged anyway during the problems. I was able to prove our account is OK online, which relieved us of worry.
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.May 1, 2018 at 2:51 pm #20274Bob, have you been able to sort out your physical health issues, I hope so!
Sorry I have just seen the other thread, glad it is all done and dusted.
May 1, 2018 at 4:29 pm #20284Completely agree John, but have never had a ‘hiccup’ with Kaspersky Safe Money. I use Firefox (just updated to 59.0.3) and Private Browsing, with the Kaspersky Safe Money inside that.
The main issues I’ve had is when using Paypal through a shop’s website. You log into your account, fill out the order, go to pay with Paypal, hit the button and sometimes Kaspersky either won’t go back to the shop or it logs you out and the payment doesn’t get associated with your order. They are the only problems I’ve had, ( using chrome and W10 ).
Well happy with it otherwise. Just renewed KIS for another year at £4.99 for 3 devices.??
May 1, 2018 at 6:32 pm #20289Sadly it appears that some who had standing orders set for today may have a problem with TSB standing orders so it could be worth seeing if the account is in good order. Not much you can do I guess except say sorry to the target account holder. Hopefully this will be addressed over the next couple of days. It is possible that it is another symptom of a capacity or throughput issue at processing pinch points.
May 1, 2018 at 6:36 pm #20292Thanks Richard, I’m off to check that. Only have one S.O., but it’s rent.
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.May 2, 2018 at 12:30 am #20299We still keep several different credit cards, though two are largely dormant, perhaps I should give them a ‘heartbeat’ transaction.
Oneof Martin Lewis’ tips used to be that you can build your credit rating by paying a small monthly bill on your credit card, but also paying it off in full when the bill arrives. That way you’re not charged any interest, but the spending and prompt payment act as positives on your credit file.
It may be worth doing that just to keep the cards active.
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.