Ulster Bank Systems are down *READ* Mod post #291

hellboy99

What I can't understand is why UB are still open and letting people lodge money into their accounts, it doesn't make any sense as it's just going to add to the workload and backlog they already have

Maybe they've gone bust and are just taking in what they can get :rolleyes:

later12

Our man in Havana wrote: »

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/rbs_natwest_what_went_wrong/

RBS are paying the Indians peanuts.

From RBS's point of view, perhaps; but I'd doubt an Indian salary of around £11,000 is peanuts when PPP is taken into account. It shouldn't affect the service being provided over there.

patnor1011

I was paid (supposedly, I have to say that I believe him as he was never late in last 3 years) by my employer on thursday. Their acc is at Ulster but nothing come to my AIB acc which makes me wonder who is going to pay unpaid direct debit charges which will AIB happily takes out from me. :mad:

Hibernicis

More by way of explanation:

http://ukcampaign4change.com/2012/06...at-went-wrong/

Susan Allen's comments wouldn’t inspire much confidence it has to be said.

Interesting also the way the keep forgetting Ulster bank anytime they say that the problem is more or less fixed

Hibernicis

And from the self same Susan Allen's web page on one of the RBS micro-sites:

"I enjoy finding solutions to tricky problems"

Right susan, this one should be just up your street

https://www.makeitrbs.com/uk/markets-and-international-banking/about-rbs/career-paths/susan-allen

Hibernicis

Meanwhile, back here in Eire, it looks like we can all relax. The Central Bank of ireland, those paragons of Action, Regulation and Financial Prudence, have spewed forth these timely words

http://www.centralbank.ie/press-area/Pages/UlsterBankCustomerNotice.aspx

5/6 days to concoct this ? The spirit of Patrick Neary is alive and well and living in Dame Street (while waiting for the North Wall job to be complete). He would be truly envious of their lightness of regulatory touch. Where is he now just when we need his profound comprehension of comples things like "Cash"

“Its very important for members of the public that they have access to cash, banks are the source of cash for members of the public, you need cash to go about your daily lives, for the economy to function properly…”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuHRulXfzGA
0:16

alexmcred

I was paid on Friday from an AIB account and it has lodged to my UB account. Although when I go into a statement view it's not showing yet.

What is annoying me is there is a debit card transaction from the 16th of June posted to the account on the 19th of June but it has no details of where the transaction is from

I rang them and they said they can't see it either as their systems are not back up

Other debit transactions I made on the 16th are showing up correctly i.e date they were presented to account and where card was used.

Ally Dick

Problem caused by a scheduler error. Basically applications run according to a diary system know as a schedule, containing jobs and programs. The programs are written correctly, the jos are set up correctly, the applications are set up correctly. However, the scheduler contains an error, that they cannot identify. Therefore nothing runs, until they can fix the scheduler problem. It's like cars on a motorway but someone puts a wall in front of them leaving them with nowhere to go. Anyway, when the problem is fixed, manual intervention is required to plot the schedule going forward, not forgetting that there could be 5 days worth of processing to get through. Business knowledge is fundamental at this point. This is where everything is f@cked. The Indians in Chennai know the way it hangs together, but don't know the business or the importance of when everything is due to run. My sources tell me that the Indians are now making unilateral maverick decisions to get through the backlog, that WILL result in double posting errors, to compound the problem. The decision to outsource to India is proving to be a monumentally daft decision

heliocentrist

Anything lodged from last Wednesday onwards not showing up in my account.

Planning to go travelling next week, they better have this sorted!

Savman

It's a fiasco. Very hard to see how UB can restore confidence after something of this scale, it may never happen again but you have to consider whether it's worth the risk keeping your eggs in the RBS basket.

I wasn't too badly affected, thankfully, but that's more to do with luck than anything else. If I was abroad when this happened I would've been well and truly stuffed.

There are lessons to be learned here on both sides tbh.

Ally Dick

Our man in Havana wrote: »

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/rbs_natwest_what_went_wrong/

RBS are paying the Indians peanuts.

Banking chiefs don't know the IT side of the business that well, but love the thoughts of saving money by getting the work done in India on the cheap. CUT YOUR IT COSTS AT YOUR PERIL

Chuckler

alexmcred wrote: »

I was paid on Friday from an AIB account and it has lodged to my UB account. Although when I go into a statement view it's not showing yet.

What is annoying me is there is a debit card transaction from the 16th of June posted to the account on the 19th of June but it has no details of where the transaction is from

I rang them and they said they can't see it either as their systems are not back up

Other debit transactions I made on the 16th are showing up correctly i.e date they were presented to account and where card was used.

I had the same problem. This day last week, I booked my weekly train ticket into work and booked my parkbytext weekly parking. Monday's transaction was duplicated on my account. I was fortunate though as I was lucky enough to "demand" my weeks wages last Thursday and clear out the balance of my on line savings account by showing them my account on my iphone.

Interestingly though, I started messing around with my savings account on Friday and managed to create a deficit of €4,400 by transferring savings that were not there from my online savings account to my current account. I managed to transfer a lot of this back to avoid fees. This did happen to anyone else?

For the record - my transaction history has ceased since this day last week

eigrod

alexmcred wrote: »

I was paid on Friday from an AIB account and it has lodged to my UB account. Although when I go into a statement view it's not showing yet.

I don't quite get this...how do you know it "has lodged to your UB account" if it's not showing yet ?

eigrod

bleg wrote: »

Just rang them there. They're only starting to process transactions from last Thursday at the moment.

It's difficult to believe anything they say to be honest. Nothing they've said so far has turned out to be true.

vickers209

EXTENDED OPENING HOURS FOR REST OF THIS WEEK 9.30AM-7.00PM!!

To help as many of our customers as possible, for the rest of this week we will extend the opening hours of approximately 80 of our branches across Ireland from 9.30am until 7pm. We would ask customers to bring photographic identification and their account details with them.

Today, our dedicated help desk is open 8am to 10pm to take your call on 1800 205 100. If you are calling from abroad please call +353 9156 2910.

We will continue to post regular updates here.

We recognise this is an unacceptable inconvenience and we want to reassure our customers that if they experience bank charges as a result of this issue they will be refunded. Once again we would like to unreservedly apologise.

alexmcred

eigrod wrote: »

I don't quite get this...how do you know it "has lodged to your UB account" if it's not showing yet ?

It's showing on the anytime banking when I first log in but when I so looking for statements i.e. a weekly one it's not showing yet. It's only showing transactions to the 19th on a weekly or any other statement length.

Hope that makes it a bit clearer

Basq

eigrod wrote: »

I don't quite get this...how do you know it "has lodged to your UB account" if it's not showing yet ?

It's reflected on the balance, but not the statement.

chasm

Just wondering about this part of the linked article: "Mr Hester warned that Ulster Bank was a couple of days behind NatWest and RBS in dealing with the backlog."
Why is this? Is it due to whatever happened with some ATMs not working?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/corner-turned-on-natwest-backlog-7880098.html

chasm

chasm wrote: »

Just wondering about this part of the linked article: "Mr Hester warned that Ulster Bank was a couple of days behind NatWest and RBS in dealing with the backlog."
Why is this? Is it due to whatever happened with some ATMs not working?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/corner-turned-on-natwest-backlog-7880098.html

No......its because Ulster Bank is at the bottom of the priority list!!

skydish79

On BBC news at ten o' clock

Steven Hester from its Global IT centre in Leicester - no doubt to counter their outsourcing issue to India

Colonialboy

Ally Dick wrote: »

Problem caused by a scheduler error. Basically applications run according to a diary system know as a schedule, containing jobs and programs. The programs are written correctly, the jos are set up correctly, the applications are set up correctly. However, the scheduler contains an error, that they cannot identify. Therefore nothing runs, until they can fix the scheduler problem. It's like cars on a motorway but someone puts a wall in front of them leaving them with nowhere to go. Anyway, when the problem is fixed, manual intervention is required to plot the schedule going forward, not forgetting that there could be 5 days worth of processing to get through. Business knowledge is fundamental at this point. This is where everything is f@cked. The Indians in Chennai know the way it hangs together, but don't know the business or the importance of when everything is due to run. My sources tell me that the Indians are now making unilateral maverick decisions to get through the backlog, that WILL result in double posting errors, to compound the problem. The decision to outsource to India is proving to be a monumentally daft decision

yes that more or less it , Ive heard the same from my soures within RBS.

I think one poster on the register put it best.

There are two trains of thought.
Train A : Our IT systems work great because we have a 1000 well paid experienced people
Train B : Our IT systems work well, why do we need a 1000 well paid experienced people.
Unfortunately there is standing room only in the carriages on Train B and Train A has been replaced with a bus service.

This whole fiasco does everyone a disservice , the RBS experienced people, the technology, the vendors, even the workers in india.

Its obvious to me that the RBS bankers who have already proven they couldnt manage running the financial side of the banks buisness when told to start running a sound buisness, turned their attention to cost savings and have now demonstrated they cant manage the IT side of a business either.

Pity the head of the Computer Science dept in one of Irelands top universitys didnt listen to me a while back when I tolfd him there was an opening to train up Irish graduates in mainframe skills to replace the workforce and to take over the millions of lines of code and major systems still running mainframes and advanced mainframe technologies.

djk68

It's just a joke. Nothing they say is true. If its a backlog issue why are none of my payments from day 1 (Wednesday) processed? So much for the "access to funds" that is promised in news sites. Over 2 thousand that I paid in bills last Wednesday is not yet processed despite the fact that it was deducted from my account and although they cannot currently make the payments at least anytime this week they have no system on place to give me access to my funds. They are in limbo and unacessable to me until they resolve the issue which doesn't look like its anytime soon. What is the financial regulator doing to help people in my situation? Looks like nothing! Conplete joke. Does "regulated by the central bank of Ireland" not give any protection to customers who are treated unfairly by a bank who refuses to refund money that they are holding indefinitely?

bijou

I've tried to access my online banking but it locked me out "as a security precaution" so I can't get to my a/c at all

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Esoteric_

I understand that UB said that they will make sure people are repaid any bank charges and such that they incur as a result of this. However, if you have, for example, an account with AIB (as I do), and are being charged bank fees or whatever, or have a bill taken out of your account (as I did) on an unauthorized overdraft because your wages haven't gone through (like mine haven't), doesn't this affect your credit rating?

Refunding bank charges is all well and good, but what about our credit ratings? I'm sure one unauthorized overdraft which is swiftly paid off won't damage my credit rating much at all, but it shouldn't be taking a hit at all!

unkel

Don't worry, Lynda. Your credit rating won't be affected at all unless you are a few months behind in your payments

Our man in Havana

They showed the ICB building on the news. It sure looks like a bunker the stasi used.

LimkUL

UlsterBank online banking down for anyone else right now??

Our man in Havana

It is always down between 2am and 6am everyday.

LimkUL

Our man in Havana wrote: »

It is always down between 2am and 6am everyday.

Really? Never noticed that before... oh well I assume my pay hasn't hit my account yet due in last Friday...