A recent report released by a group of MPs has highlighted that nine major banks and building societies in the UK have collectively experienced at least 803 hours of tech outages in the last two years. The Treasury Committee, which has been investigating the impact of banking IT failures, gathered data from Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, Santander, NatWest, Danske Bank, Bank of Ireland, and Allied Irish Bank.
Notable incidents, such as the Barclays outage in January and the Lloyds outage last week, have left many customers unable to access their funds on paydays. The report also revealed that Barclays may need to pay out £12.5m in compensation as a result of these disruptions. Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, emphasized the impact these outages have on individuals and families who rely on timely access to their funds.
In response to the findings, Barclays stated that they are committed to serving their customers and are working diligently to prevent future disruptions. The Treasury Committee’s data covers IT failures affecting millions of customers between January 2023 and February of this year, totaling 158 incidents. Despite efforts to address these issues, customers continue to face challenges related to online payments and system performance.
Looking ahead, the hope is that by making this data public, banks and regulators will work together to find solutions that minimize disruptions and improve overall service reliability. The report also highlighted that Barclays faces the highest potential compensation payout of up to £12.5m, with the Bank of Ireland following closely behind with a payout of £350,000 in the same period
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