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Major shake-up of TSB IT after core banking system migration disaster
TSB has restructured its IT team to give its internal team control of its core banking system
TSB will move control of IT to an internal team, from the tech subsidiary of its parent company Sabadell, following its disastrous migration to the platform last year.
An in-house team will take ownership of IT, including the core banking platform Proteo4UK, from Sabadell-owned supplier Sabis.
Mike Errington has been named chief information officer (CIO) and former CIO Carlos Abarca becomes chief technology innovation officer. Errington was at RBS for many years, before he left in 2014.
The restructure follows months of problems emanating from the bank’s migration of millions of customer accounts from the Lloyds Banking Group IT system that hosted them to its Proteo4UK banking platform.
Proteo4UK is an in-house banking platform based on Sabadell’s Proteo system. The architecture is the same but all the customer-facing components are customised for TSB.
It was implemented to support TSB in the digital banking age and enable it to challenge bigger banks by offering fintech services such as some of its digital challengers.
The IT problems started in April last year and lasted for months. Problems during the migration included customers being locked out of their accounts, with others reporting money disappearing from online accounts – and some were even able to see other customers’ accounts.
Read more about the TSB IT migration disaster
- The Information Commissioner’s Office and the Financial Conduct Authority are assessing the IT meltdown at TSB that led to some customer accounts being seen by other customers.
- TSB’s very public IT problems will send shivers down the spine of IT teams at large banks that are yet to migrate to new core banking systems.
- TSB customers are still experiencing problems using online and mobile banking services after almost a week of disruption.
Moving to a version of Sabadell’s in-house banking platform Proteo was seen as a way to cut costs and help TSB compete in the digital age. But TSB said the botched migration cost it a total of £330m, which included compensating customers, additional resources, fraud and foregone income. It has also damaged its reputation.
“In the coming months, we will take direct ownership of our banking platform, including direct contractual relationships with the third-party technology suppliers,” said a TSB statement.
The bank said it will continue “to build significant new technology capability” to help it innovate faster.
Former CEO Paul Pester stepped down after seven years in the role in the wake of the IT disaster.
