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

silentbang

Resi12 wrote: »

I pity the poor, poor soul who does those customer service surveys they do every month this time.

The head will be eat off him.

I dont, he probably got paid last week, out on the piss all weekend, got a few hours overtime and looking forward to the extra in his paypacket this week.

If they ring you doing a customer service survey just say 'oh id be glad to answer your questions,just give me a second'....dont hang up ,just put your phone down and see how long they wait before getting the message and going away

CourierCollie

BuffyBot wrote: »

To be fair, I'd rather they be up front and realistic about it. No point saying "It'll be fixed tomorrow", and it not fixed. It's annoying, but it would be even more annoying if they made false promises.

So you're happy with the three false promises they have already made, and believe them on their fourth promise

Ally Dick

I love the way they keep showing Nat West headquarters in Edinburgh on the news when they are explaining how they are fixing the problems. They need to have a live link to Chennai in India, to show the truth of the situation

silentbang

Ally Dick wrote: »

They need to have a live link to Chennai in India, to show the truth of the situation

Those guys had enough last Friday

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_TMlQo_69v-0/R7QkXsu4O0I/AAAAAAAAcJg/Q8T31ErpCBc/s400/1058.jpg

Nuno

Irish media are giving them an easy time.. RTÉ didn't give it a mention until the second part of the news bulletin tonight...
They're saying it won't be until early next before things will be back to normal.

Pa Dee

The root cause has yet to be fixed. UB are continuing to buy time blaming backlogs etc. There is a real possibility this will be unfixable

cyrusdvirus

Pa Dee wrote: »

The root cause has yet to be fixed. UB are continuing to buy time blaming backlogs etc. There is a real possibility this will be unfixable

Source or CT style speculation??

Hibernicis

RBS considering legal action after technical glitch

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/rbs-considering-legal-action-after-technical-glitch-556849.html

I said earlier

It indicates some/all of; gross incompetence; very poor internal communication; very very poor management, total lack of understanding of the complexity of the business; very weak corporate governance.

I'm adding tactical brilliance to the list. Announce in the middle of the crisis, when the application vendor (CA/Computer Assoicates) is one of the people most likely to be of assistance, that your going to sue their ass. Great move.

den87

Anyone else worried that this weeks salary won't go through either??

ixus

Ulsterbank account holders. If you're worried about getting paid at the end of the month, get onto your employer to send your wages to another account (set one up if needs be). You can then draw whatever cash you need and lodge in your UB account for direct debits etc.

You'd want to do it sharpish before your employer makes the transfers.

Simples.

odin_ie

Batch files with no back ups...I was talking to somebody who worked for UB IT but was let go, seems they sold off their back up server for €50k on the advice of some cost cutting consultants. No redundancy server equals possibility of this massive problem happening. I was also told by him that they were told if this ever happened, it might force the bank to close down...get your money out folks...

Lippy C

ixus wrote: »

Ulsterbank account holders. If you're worried about getting paid at the end of the month, get onto your employer to send your wages to another account (set one up if needs be). You can then draw whatever cash you need and lodge in your UB account for direct debits etc.

You'd want to do it sharpish before your employer makes the transfers.

Simples.

I don't think its as simple as that my wages are set in stone as payroll told me approx two weeks before you get paid so if you want to change bank acc not possible for this month so she said!!!

silentbang

odin_ie wrote: »

...get your money out folks...

If i could do that i wouldnt be on this thread every night for the past week.

If people dont get paid this week UB will have total madness on theyre hands, fortnightly and monthly payments due for alot of people this Thursday so they really cant afford to mess up again, but some on here saying lodgements will have to be done in order ie. last weeks then this week so god knows whats going to happen.

They get until Friday then all my patience is used up !!!!

odin_ie

silentbang wrote: »

They get until Friday then all my patience is used up !!!!

I was given my monthly pay slip last friday, and am still waiting to see it in my account. I got some cash out today, but I am sick of having to go to branch before work to get it out. Needless to say, I will be opening an account with another bank and redirecting my pay to there. I have had an Ulster Bank acc since about 2 weeks after I was born, I am done with them after this.

NuMarvel

BuffyBot wrote: »

To be fair, I'd rather they be up front and realistic about it. No point saying "It'll be fixed tomorrow", and it not fixed. It's annoying, but it would be even more annoying if they made false promises.

But they have made false promises. They first promised Friday last, then Monday, then the end of this week, and are currently promising the start of next week. The tone of my previous post might have made it sound like I was exaggerating, but those are actual timeframes they've given.

I get that the scale of the problem may have been bigger than first anticipated, and it seems that RBS understandably diverted most of their energies to first resolving the problems of their 12 million or so customers in Britain, but at some stage you have to think that they don't have a clue what they're doing. Right now, the only reason to believe that it will be fixed by next week is because they would look completely stupid if it took them two weeks to fix this.

dashboard_hula

odin_ie wrote: »

...get your money out folks...

Bit melodramatic, no? The money is there, the bookkeeping is screwed up atm, but people aren't going to lose their balances/savings/wages altogether.

Stheno

den87 wrote: »

Anyone else worried that this weeks salary won't go through either??

ixus wrote: »

Ulsterbank account holders. If you're worried about getting paid at the end of the month, get onto your employer to send your wages to another account (set one up if needs be). You can then draw whatever cash you need and lodge in your UB account for direct debits etc.

You'd want to do it sharpish before your employer makes the transfers.

Simples.

Was thinking the same, but I just need my payslip and id to get some cash on Friday, happy with that to be honest.

Lippy C wrote: »

I don't think its as simple as that my wages are set in stone as payroll told me approx two weeks before you get paid so if you want to change bank acc not possible for this month so she said!!!

Generally admin send the file to the bank two to three days in advance of payroll date to get it processed, I've done payroll and that was the case and I checked it with my work myself this week and it's still the case.

odin_ie wrote: »

I was given my monthly pay slip last friday, and am still waiting to see it in my account. I got some cash out today, but I am sick of having to go to branch before work to get it out. Needless to say, I will be opening an account with another bank and redirecting my pay to there. I have had an Ulster Bank acc since about 2 weeks after I was born, I am done with them after this.

I might be taking an unpopular view, but in my opinion, Ulster Bank/RBS etc will have taken such a almight public smack in the face about this that it will result (as inevitably happens in disaster situations) in them taking severe actions to prevent it ever happening again.

Has anyone seen the other banks websites all proclaiming to assist customers affected etc? There has been no criticism from the banking industry of the failure either?

Anyone thought why?

Anyone who currently does/or ever has worked in IT financial services has proabably muttered something akin to "there but for the grace of God go I" this past week, I know I have.

Given how fantastic the front line staff have been, and given my experience of dealing with less high profile but equally disastrou events and their outcomes, I will continue to bank with UB as I strongly believe they will end up with far more resilience in place than any bank who has not suffered this level of outage.

And on another note, senior staff will be fired as a result of this, there is no doubt in my mind of that.

BuffyBot

So you're happy with the three false promises they have already made, and believe them on their fourth promise

Nope, but I'm realistic enough to know that in this kind of circumstance, nothing is promised, just hoped for. Everything can change, as the scale of the issue causes knock on after knock on after knock on.

InReality

Stheno wrote: »

And on another note, senior staff will be fired as a result of this, there is no doubt in my mind of that.

Senior staff are never fired in ireland ..

silentbang

InReality wrote: »

Senior staff are never fired in ireland ..

Yeah they just take early retirement with all the trimmings

Stheno

InReality wrote: »

Senior staff are never fired in ireland ..

The senior staff concerned are not in Ireland, I'm talking director level here.

There will be a serious review in RBS after this, looking like back to the decision to outsource, what caused this outage, the lack of knowledge transfer, review of business cases, risk registers etc.

Someone somewhere made a bad decision here.

And whilst not director level, I've seen plenty heads of IT lose their jobs here as a result of bad decisions.

duckysauce

odin_ie wrote: »

Batch files with no back ups...I was talking to somebody who worked for UB IT but was let go, seems they sold off their back up server for €50k on the advice of some cost cutting consultants. No redundancy server equals possibility of this massive problem happening. I was also told by him that they were told if this ever happened, it might force the bank to close down...get your money out folks...

:rolleyes:
was it the same back up server for natwest as well ?

Ally Dick

Every bank has Disaster Recovery in place. It's an offsite backup mainframe that they can move to if main site breaks down. Why was disaster recovery not invoked after day two in RBS ? Oh, could it be that EVERYTHING was outsourced, including the backup system ?

Stheno

duckysauce wrote: »

:rolleyes:
was it the same back up server for natwest as well ?

The entire batch schedule for RBS and all of its subsiduaries appears to have been deleted when backing out a change. Its been reported as the case numerous times, and not refuted.

What then appears to have happened is a decision was taken to restore accounts to the largest customer base, along with inter bank payment processing.

This has left Ulsterbank customers in the "small fish/big pond" area and they are last to be processed.

There was no back up it appears of the batch schedule, and for those who might find that surprising, those of us who work in/have worked in IT in Financial services, are not at all surprised given the complexity of such schedules and the reliance of the knowlege of people in such situations.

Stheno

Ally Dick wrote: »

Every bank has Disaster Recovery in place. It's an offsite backup mainframe that they can move to if main site breaks down. Why was disaster recovery not invoked after day two in RBS ? Oh, could it be that EVERYTHING was outsourced, including the backup system ?

Ally,

Given youre previous posts, you are letting yourself down here a little. If a true hotsite was in place and all updates were replicated to the hotsite, and the link was not taken down before the change/backout of the change that is alleged to have caused this to happen, then you've a disaster waiting to happen.

Good example of where instant hotsites don't work without some sort of failsafe.

Ally Dick

The bank is going to need to employ a seriously heavyweight business banking expert or two, when all this is over, to work on refunds. I believe that already the bank has screwed up the correct order of posting, leaving customers account position showing as overdrawn, when they should be in the black. It's going to be a nightmare for them to try and work out the correct interest accrued on interest earning accounts, and they're going to probably have to refund all interest due on current and loan accounts from last Tuesday to when everything is fixed up. Going to be a f@cking nightmare. No Indian has the expertise to do this. They'll have to get their Irish and UK staff that they made redundant back to work on this. I wager they'll be offering people silly money to come back and help them....unless they are completely stupid

Stheno

Ally Dick wrote: »

The bank is going to need to employ a seriously heavyweight business banking expert or two, when all this is over, to work on refunds. I believe that already the bank has screwed up the correct order of posting, leaving customers account position showing as overdrawn, when they should be in the black. It's going to be a nightmare for them to try and work out the correct interest accrued on interest earning accounts, and they're going to probably have to refund all interest due on current and loan accounts from last Tuesday to when everything is fixed up. Going to be a f@cking nightmare. No Indian has the expertise to do this. They'll have to get their Irish and UK staff that they made redundant back to work on this. I wager they'll be offering people silly money to come back and help them....unless they are completely stupid

I agree with you on this, today the phone people told me transaction are now not being processed chronologically which impacts hugely on interest!

Should have recorded them!

2qk4u

Im getting a bit fed up with this now, I dont know how much money is available to me, a cheque I lodged last Thursday still has not shown up and transactions from the previous Sunday are not showing, I dont know where I am.
Im confused as to why Ulsterbank keep referring to the the start of the problem as being last Wednesday when we have been having problems from the previous weekend.
If I go to the bank tomorrow to get money how will they know how much to give me ?
Is my cheque clearing from when I gave it to them or from when they fix this ?

Stheno

The system is broke, and it stopped last Tuesday at the latest.

Your cheque will clear when it should have.

Think of it as a timewarp, it stopped last Tuesday at the latest. Online banking is completely confused, so check, if you can get money from an ATM.

In an ideal world, banks would be running mirrored mainframe services which would prevent this type of scenario. Only the best and most enlightened banks (yes... They do exist) have these systems in place.
RBS chose cost over quality.
I have most of my accounts with UB but so far I am unaffected as i get paid monthly. I hope they have their house in order before next Monday so that i escape any effects.
I wont move from UB but I will definitely change my banking setup so that I am not fully reliant on any one bank in the future.
I do not blame UB at all as they are entirely at the mercy of the parent company RBS who have created this mess through penny pinching and lack of proper Service Management and standards.