Page 286 - Bank Case Studies

What TSB officials said was going on, and what customers

said on Twitter were vastly different.

Josep Oliu, chairman of TSB owners Sabadell, boasted on

Monday, as the bank went into meltdown: “With this

operation, Sabadell demonstrates its capacity of

technological management.”

By any measure TSB’s IT failure was the worst failure by a

British bank since RBS left its customers locked out of their

accounts in 2012 and it showed that branches matter,

despite the shift to online banking.

Furthermore, it became apparent that as

customers experienced online problems
Call
they turned to phoning TSB but TSB/Lloyds
Terminated
had degraded its call center operations

and they could not cope with the number

of calls.

By late July 2018 the IT failure had cost TSB £176 million with

further costs, as well as potential fines, still to emerge. But

although the crisis pushed the bank to its first ever loss

(£107.4 million), it nevertheless, avoided the exodus of
account holders that some had initially feared. Around

26,000 customers switched their bank account away from

TSB following the fiasco, whilst more than 20,000
newcomers opened a new account or switched to TSB in the

second quarter. (23)