RBS says IT issues could make it miss Williams & Glyn branch sale deadline

At an very early stage of this divestment/separation programme, which is now over four years old and employs some 5000+ people, a suggestion was made why not buy a bank in a box ie latest technology, latest security etc etc and perform a data migration , but NO the grown ups in the bank decided to create a mini me of RBS which was doomed from the off, mind you no way RBS would create a challenger bank with a better start in life than it had, so think about all the outages and technical problems RBS has had and then shrink them into W&G. No wonder RBS is now putting out messages that the deadline might be missed.................. might have been easier and cheaper to give all the customers £500 each and say push off and find another bank....... 

The complexity of the customer base, the product set and the myriad of UK and EU Regulatory requirements that this divestment must comply with will have severely constrained the bank's choice of divestment options. So, I do have some sympathy for the bank though I am sure with the benefit of hindsight, there are things they would have done differently.

With respect to the previous comment regarding paying everyone £500 and asking them to find another bank, it is quite simplistic. TCF (Treating Customers Fairly) will prevent the bank from doing that for a variety of reasons, e.g. customer's financial situation may have changed and they may not be able to get another account, some vulnerable customers may be incapable of getting another account and so on.. 

I wish the bank well in delivering this divestement as early as they realistically can so that both staff and customers can move on from this state of limbo.

If Brexit happens, then perhaps the whole thing will be may be called off as the UK will no longer be subject to EU regulations. WHo knows....

Worldpay took the opposite route when RBS sold them off in 2010. They decided to build a new technology platform to go live in October 2013 and yet in April 2016 the new platform's still not live. IT projects can over-run irrespective of the technology being used, and on-time delivery is not the same thing as success.

I assume that for W&G, "like for like replacement" was seen as an easier, quicker and lower risk strategy than migrating to a new platform. But even if it had been delivered on time, the project would still have failed to deliver a great customer experience, a platform for the future, or even a reliable service - and that failure should have been foreseen before the project was even initiated. Sacrificing key project benefits in a vain attempt to meet a deadline that ends up slipping anyway is madness.