NatWest branches’ historic Sunday opening after backlog
NatWest opens 1,200 branches across the country for the first time ever on a Sunday as the bank tries to clear a massive backlog of payments caused by a computer glitch.
Branches opened their doors between 9am and noon, amid continued anger following days of disruption.
Stephen Hester, chief executive of NatWest owner RBS, yesterday issued a public apology for the technical hitch and conceded the bank had let down its customers.
The chaos, caused by a problem with computer software, left many of its clients unable to pay bills or access their money.
Mr Hester attempted to reassure customers following mounting fears that thousands of people could be hit with penalty charges if their regular payments – including mortgages – were affected.
Apology
“I am very sorry for the difficulties people are experiencing,” he said.
He added that his priority is to “fix these problems and put things right for our customers”.
NatWest has more than 7.5 million personal banking customers but it is unclear how many have been affected.
The issues extend to users of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Ulster Bank, which like NatWest are part of RBS Group.
Ulster Bank said about 100,000 of its customers experienced difficulties.
While the original technical glitch has been fixed, staff are now working through the build-up of transactions which have not been processed.
Double the usual number of employees are manning call centres to tackle the problems, Mr Hester said.
“Our staff have already helped thousands of customers to access cash and we will continue to provide this service on a 24-hour basis while we work to resolve the problems,” he added.
Software update
“I also want to reassure customers that no one will be left permanently out of pocket as a result of this, and again, they should contact us directly about this.”
In a message to staff, he said he was proud of the work his employees were doing but that they were “not out of the woods yet and there is more hard work ahead”.
The initial problem reportedly arose following an attempt to install a software update on RBS’s payment processing system, which was then corrupted.
The fault meant payments went awry, wages appeared to go missing and holiday and home purchases were interrupted.
When account balances were not updated properly overnight, credit and debit payments failed to show up as quickly as they should.