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June 26th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Natwest has shed 30,000 jobs since taxpayer rescue in 2007, including 20,000 UK positions, and has outsourced work overseas
- Insiders say many of the bank’s support teams are now based in India, where they earn between £9,000 and £11,000 a year
- Bank staff union Unite questions whether ‘off-shoring’ job cuts have left Natwest unable to cope with the current crisis
- RBS denies that the outsourcing of staff has had an impact on its ability to cope with the unfolding transaction processing crisis
By
Vanessa Allen
17:28 EST, 25 June 2012
|
17:54 EST, 25 June 2012
The flawed computer programme that led to chaos for millions of RBS customers was being supervised by an IT support team in India, it was revealed last night.
Last February, RBS advertised for a series of key jobs, paying between £9,000 and £11,000 a year, in the Indian city of Hyderabad. That is way below what an equivalent worker would be paid in Britain.
The banking giant was urgently seeking computer graduates with several years experience of using CA-7, the programme which the bank uses to run its vast network of transactions and accounts.
Natwest bank IT HQ? The city of Hyderabad, India, where Natwest parent RBS employs its IT support staff on a yearly wage of between £9,000 and £11,000
The job advertisement said: ‘Looking
for candidates having 4-7 years of experience in Batch Administration
using CA-7 tool. Urgent requirement by RBS.’
But
last night technology website The Register claimed that this software
needed to be updated and overseen from India by staff who are employed
to work around the clock to solve any faults.
RBS
has been swift to deny that its controversial job out-sourcing
programme has been responsible for the fiasco.
It merely says that the
‘software error occurred on a UK-based piece of software’ but has
declined to say where the staff overseeing the software are based.
It is a fact that the vast computer
servers are based in Britain. But insiders confirmed last night that
many of their support team are based in India.
Useless: A woman passes an out of order NatWest
cashpoint in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire. The IT fiasco at the bank has now
entered its seventh day, with many customers still unable to access their cash
Since being rescued by the taxpayer
RBS has shed about 30,000 jobs, including more than 20,000 UK-based
roles, and has outsourced work abroad.
Some
of its IT support teams are now said to be based in India, even though
the under-fire banking group’s headquarters remain in Edinburgh.
The buck stops here? RBS chief administrative
officer Ron Teerlink is the executive directly responsible for the
bank’s IT systems
The Unite union questioned whether the ‘off-shoring’ job cuts had left the bank unable to cope after the software failure.
Last night insiders said problems began on Tuesday night when CA-7 was updated. On a normal evening, this should allow all the cashpoint withdrawals, salary transfers and direct debits to be updated.
The nightly update is the reason why internet banking transactions made by so many customers are not updated if they are made after a certain time of the day.
But what appears to have happened is that crucial files were deleted. The error was spotted but – incredibly – was repeated on Wednesday and again on Thursday.
It was only on Friday morning that staff realised the full scale of the crisis. Urgent calls to India followed and troubleshooters were drafted in.
The problem was that every single transaction that was waiting in the queue had to be reprocessed in strict order of arrival, causing further delays over last weekend.
RBS has consistently denied that the decision to relocate jobs to India has made any difference to its handling of the situation.
But critics said that if the number of UK-based support staff had been run down, it would always run the risk of problems if there was a major fault.
Last night Computer Associates, which owns CA-7, declined to comment on what had caused the problem.
The fiasco is believed to be the longest and most widespread problem of its kind since the advent of computer banking.
Which? said it raised questions about how robust systems were at other banks. Britain’s major banks have all faced criticism that they are reliant on constantly grafting software updates on to their complex computer systems rather than replacing the systems themselves.
David Bannister, the editor of Banking Technology magazine, told Channel 4 News: ‘What should have been a minor glitch has led to a pretty disastrous cock-up.’
He questioned why a back-up system did not appear to have been in place to protect the bank against a software failure.
The executive directly responsible for the bank’s IT systems is chief administrative officer Ron Teerlink. His pay and bonus are not disclosed because he does not sit on the main board, but he is understood to receive a six-figure package.
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IT transferred to India, what did RBS expect. Vote with your feet, and don’t just rely on one bank.
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None of the UK banks are safe. The management has repeatedly cut ‘expensive’ experienced staff and replaced them with cheap outsourced staff. At the same time the systems have become more complex and more real time. The result is that NOBODY at any level fully understands any of the bank systems – just the portions they deal with. Ideally, some senior managers and directors need to be criminally prosecuted for not meeting the FSA regulations. That may concentrate the minds of the directors of the other banks on other things than just their bonuses and perhaps reverse the rot. 5 years in prison with immediate loss of pay, bonuses and pensions should do it.
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How can you have your IT department thousands of miles away – just asking for trouble especially if they speak a different language – we have unemployed IT specialists here …… My granny used to say …. the cheapest becomes the dearest!
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Every company you deal with seems to direct you to India – very frustrating when the person on the other end has an accent so thick you can’t understand each other – it must lead to mistakes .
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Off shoring again. HP have done it. EDS did it. IBM have done it. Cap Gemini have done it. Fujitsu have done it. All the major players want cheap labour. This is the result!
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Anybody who has worked in IT will tell you what a sham outsourcing to India is. “troubleshooters were drafted in” – ah yes, call in the people who actually know what they are doing to clean up the mess. I hope they lose billions over this, perhaps then they can factor in the costs of stabbing the british software industry in the back.
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They did the same here in Silicon Valley,sacked all the American IT workers and switched to Indian. Any problems they just employ Americans on short term contracts and when solved sack them again, it still cheaper.
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Unite playing games as usual with misinformation. Computer management is always carried out remotely – even if its in the same building. So location of the resources is irrelevcant, competancy is. Unite are scaremongering unless they have some direct information that there is a lack of IT competance in India or that it only resides in its chav class members in the UK.
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This has got nothing to do with job cuts, UNITE jumping on the band wagon as usual. This organisation has to much power and should be banned before it takes over running the country
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Bye bye Ron Teerlink and bye bye Stephen Hester. India, well it must have been cheap?
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