According to Which?, banks in the UK are suffering because of IT failures which happen on a daily basis. These repeated IT failures are causing a lot of problems for customers who want to use their banks services for convenient access to cash and to make payment for groceries and day to day essentials.
The consumer group warned banks to put their efforts of making all transactions cashless on hold because the regular IT failures needed to be addressed first!
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been requiring banks to report any operational and security incidents that prevented the use of payment services since the start of 2018. The results are pretty disheartening as reports of breaches and glitches from all the 30 banks operating in the UK have shown that IT failures are happening far too frequently.
Data which was accumulated from March to Dec 2018 showed Barclays leading the pack with 41 security breaches; Lloyds suffered 37 incidents while Halifax/Bank of Scotland experienced 31. NatWest had 26 and RBS rounded out the top five banks in the UK with 21 failures. Barclays also had as many as 302 reported incidents in 2018 which prevented customers from paying online.
Sky News
In a statement, Jenny Ross, Which? Money’s editor said
Our research shows that these major banking glitches – which can cause huge stress and inconvenience to those affected – are even more common than we feared. This highlights why it is so important that a regulator is given responsibility to protect cash as a backup when technology fails and to ensure no one is left behind as digital payments become more common.
Resist Move To Full Electronic Payment
These frequent IT incidents along with the push for cashless payments is causing a lot of trouble for the common man and resulting in a cash crisis in the UK. Recent research has shown that the country’s ATM machines are closing at a rate of around 500 a month. Banks are also closing down brick-and-mortar branches to reduce costs. This is forcing people in the UK to go for cashless payments since cash has become a lot harder to obtain.
It doesn’t help that a lot of retailers are pushing for cashless payments, especially supermarkets. Public transportation is also moving towards electronic payments as bank cards and mobile phone apps take over for cash. For cashless payments to work successfully, banks have to make sure that they do not have IT incidents on a daily basis as it inconveniences the common man who cannot complete a digital payment and cannot access cash!
