TSB customers fear bills problems as IT chaos heads towards payday

The bank has said payments, including direct debits and standing orders, are not affected

Customers are still locked out of accounts five days after the online banking system was supposed to be fully functional (Reuters)

TSB customers have been left uncertain about payment of their end-of-month bills as hundreds of thousands of people remained locked out of their online accounts on Friday.

Five days after TSB’s technology platform was supposed to be fully functional, many users still reported problems.

Angry customers again took to social media, with many expressing concern about how the problems would affect payday – a common time to pay mortgages, rent and other essential bills.

​TSB has said payments, including direct debits and standing orders, are not affected by the technical problems, which began with a planned migration of customer accounts onto an IT system owned by the bank’s parent company Sabadell.

Demands for an answer about the debacle and its causes grew louder on Friday. Labour MP Wes Streeting, a member of the House of Commons Treasury Committee, said the bank must explain to parliament how the problems arose.

“There can be no excuses for such a serious failure, but we need to understand what has gone so evidently badly wrong.”

On Thursday TSB chief executive Paul Pester said the bank was “on its knees” and drafted in technology experts from IBM to try to fix the problems.

Mr Pester has come in for heavy criticism for his handling of the situation this week, but refused to commit to giving up his £2m bonus when asked by the BBC.

He was silent on the problems that occurred from Sunday, when customers should have had full access to their accounts, until Tuesday morning when he claimed that systems “were up and running” when about half of customers were still locked out.

Engineers at Sabadell had incorrectly told him everything was working, Mr Pester later said.

TSB has assured customers that they will not be left out of pocket and they can contact the bank to request compensation for losses they have incurred because of the meltdown.

The total bill for the problems is not yet known, nor is an end date, but a pledge by TSB to increase interest rates on the company’s most popular account – the Classic Plus – is thought to be on track to rack up £30m in costs. The company has also waived overdraft fees for April.

Sabadell’s quarterly accounts published this week showed a €71m (£62m) charge related to the botched migration, which was initially supposed to take place in September.