Brit banking sector hasn’t gone a single day of 2020 without something breaking

January 3, 2020 TH Author

Updated It appears the UK banking system is playing a fiscal game of Top Trumps as both Yorkshire and Clydesdale Bank followed yesterday’s example set by Lloyds by not processing payments into customer accounts.

Problems followed a similar pattern as customers checked their accounts this morning to find expected payments not turning up.

Minor stuff like, er, salaries, that sort of thing.

The wailing kicked off from 6am local time, reaching a crescendo three hours later as customers hit refresh and refresh once more, but their expected payments continued to be absent.

Yorkshire Bank’s customer service orifice on Twitter gave up responding publicly to users just before 10am, presumably to focus on the wave of customers bombarding the bank’s news emitter. Over the course of the morning the bank went from “investigating this issue” to confirming that things were indeed borked.

We are aware of the issues some customers are having with transactions coming in to their accounts. We are doing a full investigation and ask that you please bear with us whilst we find out what is causing this. Any further information will be provided as soon as we have it.

— Yorkshire Bank (@yorkshirebank) January 3, 2020

The bank was, however, at pains to reassure customers that it would be dealing with the fiscal fallout caused by the outage and were quick to give us the following statement:

A cynic might wonder if the same Jim Henson creations responsible for Lloyds’ Faster payments did some moonlighting on the systems used by Yorkshire Bank, which also trades as Clydesdale Bank and Virgin Money.

Hi there, thanks for getting in touch. Our Current Account team are aware of the issue with payments. We’re investigating the reports as a priority and will provide an update for customers as soon as possible. ^RS

— Virgin Money (@VirginMoney) January 3, 2020

To its credit, the bank has admitted that there is a problem and the promise of no “negative financial impact” is reassuring. However, it will be interesting to see how the bank is willing to go beyond overdraft fees and late payment penalties when calculating the amount of this impact.

.@askyorkshire
Ummm…….Where are my wages?

I have to buy food to feed my kids..
I have to buy shoes for my kids..
and I gotta eat at some point too..
I don’t earn much at all…so the little I do have I manage…but I cannot manage with NOTHING!…

Jesus H Christ! …

— Cathy Higgins – #ForEverLabour ???? (@JustMeBeingMe4) January 3, 2020

It has been a difficult few days for the UK’s banking sector, but hopefully the problem will be resolved ahead of the inevitable rush to the pubs this evening for, er, soft drinks and soda.

It is January after all. ®

* Transfers Into Traders Seem Utterly Pants

Updated to add

A spokesperson got back in touch with The Reg and told us: “We are aware some customers experienced a delay today with Bacs transactions reaching their accounts. This was caused by the processing date for a Bacs file being incorrect, which delayed transactions showing in customers’ accounts.”

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused to those customers affected. We are now working to get account balances updated overnight so that correct funds are available from early tomorrow morning. We can assure customers that they will not be negatively impacted financially as a result of this. Anybody with any ongoing concerns should contact the bank through the usual channels.”