# Ulster Bank Payments Debacle



## Leper (23 Jun 2012)

Ulster Bank has failed the people.  Social Welfare payments have been delayed. Wages have been unpaid.  People on holidays abroad cannot access due monies at atms.  All because Ulster Bank fell down on the job.

Why is it that our government departments, local authorities, etc are dealing with a foreign owned bank and not its "own" Irish bank which is even shedding staff?


----------



## Sunny (23 Jun 2012)

Leper said:


> Why is it that our government departments, local authorities, etc are dealing with a foreign owned bank and not its "own" Irish bank which is even shedding staff?



Because individuals have their accounts with Ulster Bank. Not sure how you can blame the state for this mess


----------



## Guest105 (23 Jun 2012)

Leper said:


> Why is it that our government departments, local authorities, etc are dealing with a foreign owned bank and not its "own" Irish bank which is even shedding staff?



Now now this forum has no place for your prejudices,  AIB or BOI could have gone down the same way just because they Irish doesn't mean to say they are immune from technical hitches.


----------



## The_Banker (23 Jun 2012)

Whoever is head of DR (disaster recovery) within Ulster Bank from an IT perspective will probably be kissing his/her job goodbye pretty soon. 

Total disaster.

Banks (and indeed all companies) have technical problems all the time but systems are in place to ensure continunity of service.
There must have been multiple systems failures within ULB to have this type of problem that it going on for a number of days.


----------



## Leper (23 Jun 2012)

Sunny, I'm not blaming the state or its agencies for the Ulster Bank debacle. The Ulster Bank is responsible and has not been telling us the truth and now it does not know when matters will be rectified. First it was Friday (yesterday), then Saturday, then Monday, now it hasn't a clue when the matter will be cleared up. Try telling this to people in say Portugal waiting for a few bob by an atm machine for the rest of their holiday.

Cashier, I have no prejudice against anybody.

But, I cannot understand how the state and its agencies cannot use the bank it already owns instead of a bank owned by people outside of this country.

It does not make sense in my thinking how our banks are shedding staff and the state and state agencies (supported by us the taxpayer) are enhancing bank jobs abroad when they could be preventing some redundancies in Ireland.

We are advised to buy Irish by our State, but it continues not to buy Irish itself.


----------



## BOXtheFOX (24 Jun 2012)

I have had various different accounts with Ulster Bank for about 12 years now including my current account. Over the yeras I have had umpteen things go wrong with these accounts. I have also had some pretty poor counter service from them as well. I have also had some excellent service from them. I have complained and I have received letters of apology and also compensation after I have asked. Thankfully I have an account in my local Credit Union where I can access cash when needed. At the moment I have two utility bills waiting to be paid and an Ulster Credit Card that needs to be paid. What has happened doesn't surprise me in the least. I get free banking from them. When that goes I will look around for the lower priced product on the market and move there, just as I look around for the deposit account paying the higher interest. I have no loyalty to them because they have no loyalty to me.

My guess is that over the next few years we might see Ulster Bank withdrawing from the Irish market.


----------



## Marion (24 Jun 2012)

*What's being said on Twitter*:


http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/ulster bank

Marion


----------



## ajapale (24 Jun 2012)

The substantive UB issue is dealt with here:
Banking, credit cards, etc   	>  Ulsterbank systems down, many left without money


----------



## ajapale (24 Jun 2012)

Leper said:


> Why is it that our government departments, local authorities, etc are dealing with a foreign owned bank.. (UB)..?



Which government departments, local authorities etc use UB?

In this case if the employee has an account with UB then the employer (public or private sector) is obliged to deal with that bank regardless of the ownership of that bank.


----------



## Leper (24 Jun 2012)

Not only are accounts owned by individuals affected by the debacle, accounts owned by Dept of Soc Welfare who deal with Ulster Bank are affected inasmuch as nothing has been transferred to individual accounts in other banks.

The HSE deals with Ulster Bank and consequently many of its employees have not yet been paid.

But, I am still arguing that our government and government agencies should be using Irish banks especially the one that we all already own.  Surely with the country's spending power through the banks a half decent rate can be worked out?

It makes a mockery of the Buy Irish Campaign supported by our government.


----------



## Marion (24 Jun 2012)

Leper said:
			
		

> The HSE deals with Ulster Bank



I read somewhere that this was organised by Mary Harney a number of years ago as a cost-saving exercise. 

I can't remember where I read it or whether it was an authoritative source.

Marion


----------



## becky (24 Jun 2012)

Marion said:


> I read somewhere that this was organised by Mary Harney a number of years ago as a cost-saving exercise.
> 
> I can't remember where I read it or whether it was an authoritative source.
> 
> Marion



I would have thought UB would have won the tender.  I could be mistaken but don't think a minister can just decide what bank to use.

I'm HSE and money is appearing on my ptsb online account with mondays date, it should have appeared last thursday.


----------



## Marion (24 Jun 2012)

I'm sure you're correct Becky. Mary Harney must have put it out to tender.

Marion


----------



## Guest105 (26 Jun 2012)

Would [broken link removed]have anything to do with the current problem?


----------



## Liamos (26 Jun 2012)

cashier said:


> Would [broken link removed]have anything to do with the current problem?


 
Is it safe to open?


----------



## Firefly (26 Jun 2012)

cashier said:


> Would [broken link removed]have anything to do with the current problem?


 
From what I have learned so far the problem has to do with a software upgrade that was performed by recently outsourced staff in India. The fact that the staff are in India is not IMO the issue, rather that outsourced staff who are inexperienced with the system performed the work in the first place. Outsourcing works well when the systems are humming along, it's when something like this happens that things can go horribly wrong. I've worked for both in-house and consultancy/outsourcing companies myself and think that if companies can afford it at all they should keep their production systems in-house and perhaps outsource the development/test environments only (to keep the board of directors/accountants happy) as long as production-like Pre Production environments are maintained to test upgrades/releases performed by outsourced staff in the aforementioned development/test environments.

A positive note on all this is that I would imagine UB will put the ending of their free banking on the long finger


----------



## Guest105 (26 Jun 2012)

Liamos said:


> Is it safe to open?


----------



## ajapale (26 Jun 2012)

Leper said:


> .. I am still arguing that our government and government agencies should be using Irish banks especially the one that we all already own.
> 
> It makes a mockery of the Buy Irish Campaign supported by our government.



I thought that the govenment and all public sector organisations had to follow EU procurement policies for Goods and Services? Any "Buy Irish Campaign" would be in direct conflict with such policies.

You do raise an interesting question however! Does the public sector have to tender out for provision of Bank Services? What happens in the private sector? 

Finally I think its a bit unfair to potentially discriminate against UB on the grounds that it is a foreign owned bank. It was founded in the 1830's in Ireland has Ireland as the base of its operations, its RoI operations are regulated by the Central Bank and it employs thousands of Irish employees.


----------



## Kine (26 Jun 2012)

I just hope they have lost my mortgage in all the madness


----------



## micmclo (26 Jun 2012)

Am I wrong for hoping this might mean this bank and others might stop sending jobs to India and bring these jobs back to Ireland and the UK?


----------



## TarfHead (26 Jun 2012)

micmclo said:


> Am I wrong for hoping this might mean this bank and others might stop sending jobs to India and bring these jobs back to Ireland and the UK?


 
Not wrong. Naive maybe, but not wrong .

For the 'strategy *' of outsourcing to be reversed, an executive would have to admit a mistake, and executives don't get to be executives by admitting failure. More likely the 'strategy' was right and the execution was at fault.

With the way in which IT Support was outsourced for RBS, an inestimable amount of 'corporate memory' was paid to leave. That level of knowledge and experience cannot be replaced without disruption. IT staff in India are educated to a high level and are ambituous to succeed. What is rumoured to have happened could have happened with experienced hands on board, but the recovery from the problem would, IMHO, have been different, i.e. better.

'strategy *' I don't believe cost cutting to be a strategy.


----------



## DerKaiser (26 Jun 2012)

micmclo said:


> Am I wrong for hoping this might mean this bank and others might stop sending jobs to India and bring these jobs back to Ireland and the UK?


 
Do we know that this is what has caused the problem? 

It looks as though 
(1) Software was upgraded without appropriate testing
(2) There was no adequate disaster recovery capability

People responsible for both of these issues would typically not be outsourced to India, Eastern Europe, etc.


----------



## DB74 (26 Jun 2012)

DerKaiser said:


> Do we know that this is what has caused the problem?
> 
> It looks as though
> (1) Software was upgraded without appropriate testing
> ...



Sounds familiar

(1) Houses were upgraded without appropriate testing
(2) There was no adequate disaster recovery capability


----------



## micmclo (26 Jun 2012)

From the banking forum




MeathCommute said:


> Ulster bank and Natwest are owned by Royal Bank Of Scotland. The chief execs of RBOS outsourced all of their IT work to Chennai in India three years ago. Union chiefs warned them of the potential catastrophic reaches of such a decision. Staff in Parkgate Street Dublin were all made redundant. Staff in Edinburgh were made redundant also. Overall over 1000 experienced IT staff were let go. Now the chickens have come home to roost



Management have learned that cheapest is often the dearest


----------



## Firefly (26 Jun 2012)

I would imagine the rates for short-term, mainframe contracts has increased rather substantially in Dublin/Edinburgh at the moment  . Ahh...fond memories of green-screen Cobol...


----------



## TarfHead (26 Jun 2012)

Firefly said:


> I would imagine the rates for short-term, mainframe contracts has increased rather substantially in Dublin/Edinburgh at the moment  . Ahh...fond memories of green-screen Cobol...


 
I think there are Indian IT services companies who have such resources at competitive rates ?

This sounds plausible, even if it just speculation.


----------



## Firefly (26 Jun 2012)

TarfHead said:


> I think there are Indian IT services companies who have such resources at competitive rates ?


 
I should have qualified my statement to refer to contract rates for former employees to come back for a short period of time...


----------

