RBS and Natwest computers break down again

UK BANKS the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Natwest had computer problems again last night that blocked customer access to their money for around three hours.

The downtime occurred between 10pm and 1am last night, prime drinking hours in the UK. If you were out and about then and low on funds, you might have been rather annoyed.

We are aware of the problems our customers are having and apologise, we will provide more information as soon as we have it.

— NatWest Help (@NatWest_Help) March 6, 2013

Both banks have issued apologies to their customers via Twitter.

We are disappointed that our customers have faced disruption to banking services for a period this evening, and apologise for that.

— RBS Help (@RBS_Help) March 7, 2013

The banks have said that the problem should be fixed for all customers now, so it's probably a good time to go and get your shopping done.

All services are now running as normal again.

— RBS Help (@RBS_Help) March 7, 2013

In a statement RBS said that its services had returned to normal, and added that if anyone was still having problems then they should get in touch with it.

"We are disappointed that our customers have faced disruption to banking services for a period this evening, and apologise for that. All services are now running as normal again," said a spokesperson.

"If any customers are having continued difficulties please call on 0845 7242424 if an RBS customer or 0845 7888 444 if a Natwest customer so we can resolve their issues."

Both firms had customer-maddening computer downtime last summer thanks, reportedly, to a failed CA-7 scheduling subsystem.

That system is about 40 years old by now. Correction, 41 years old now. Neither bank has confirmed that caused the problems this time around.

Update
In an updated statement the two banks said that this recent problem was not related to the issues it endured in the summer.

"Between roughly 9-11pm customers were not able to access online banking and also had problems with ATM use and point of service payments," reads the statement.

"This problem was caused by a hardware fault and was not related to the issues we experienced last summer. It was much easier to fix, though clearly an unacceptable failure. Any customer who was left out of pocket due to this outage should get in touch so we can put things right for them." µ