Glitch forces RBS, NatWest, Ulster Bank to open Sunday
Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank and NatWest were to
take the unusual move of opening 1,200 branches on Sunday after a
computer glitch hit millions of customers.
The software problems, which left many customers unable to pay bills,
access their accounts and even receive their wages, have now been fixed
-- but staff are now battling a huge backlog of unprocessed
transactions.
A spokesman for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which owns the other
two banks, told AFP a "large majority" of the trio's combined 15 million
personal banking customers had been affected by the IT meltdown.
RBS chief executive Stephen Hester issued a public apology on
Saturday and admitted that customers had been let down.
"I am very sorry for the difficulties people are experiencing," he
said. "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."
Hester said double the usual number of staff were manning call
centres to tackle the problem, which reportedly arose after a failed
attempt to install an update on RBS's payment processing software. |
