A Frantic TSB Turns to IBM For Mobile Payments, Online Banking Help

May 1, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

Online banking operations are kind of dependent on the whole “online” concept in order to exist. It’s right there in the name. After TSB, one of the UK’s many new challenger banks, tried to set up a system upgrade that didn’t quite go off how it wished, the company started looking for help. It found that help in IBM, who’s set to help the bank get back on track.

TSB’s leader, Paul Pester, noted that TSB was “on our knees”, but didn’t plan to throw in the metaphorical towel just yet. In fact, Pester issued a defiant remark, that the company would “…get back up and come back fighting” as soon as it could get its IT running.

The need for outside help became clear as it was found that fully half of the bank’s customers in the small business and consumer accounts divisions were completely shut out of their accounts, and have been for over a week now. To the bank’s credit, it did make it clear that customers would not be assessed overdraft fees or other charges this month, but it’s still a hit the bank likely didn’t want to take.

Pester also revealed the complexity of TSB’s operations, and why help from IBM would likely be helpful here. He said “We have two data centers, miles of fiberoptic cable and several layers of software. Somewhere along that architecture are issues causing capacity constraints. We have a team of experts that will get to the bottom of this.”

On the one hand, TSB is responding about as well as it can here, looking to patch up the problem with some serious outside professional help, and making sure customers are made whole all the while. On the other, it probably never should have reached this point; this is the kind of thing that needed to be done right the first time. While TSB has clearly shown its stripes as a company that takes care of its customers, it’s certainly not doing them any favors by putting them through all this in the first place.

This isn’t unsalvageable, and if TSB can get things up and running in short order even with IBM’s help, it may be able to maintain its position as a real challenger bank.