The UK's influential treasury Committee is to launch an inquiry into bank IT failures after a string of high profile incidents at major banks.
The Committee will examine the ability of financial services institutions to guard against service disruptions and to put things right in the event that disruptions do occur, and whether regulators have the relevant skills to adequately hold people to account.
The move comes in the wake of the massive IT crisis at TSB and a series of glitches and outages afflicting online banking and payment cards across the sector.
Nicky Morgan MP, Chair of the Treasury Committee, says: “The number of IT failures at banks and other financial institutions in recent years is astonishing. Since becoming Chair of the Committee 16 months ago, there have been problems at Equifax, TSB, Visa, Barclays, Cashplus and RBS, to name a few."
She decries the "measly apologies and hollow words" uttered by financial institutions when customers are subject to the uncertainty and disruption caused by banking IT failures.
“As bank branches close and customers are ushered towards online services, the availability of those services is vital," she says. “The Committee has launched this inquiry to consider the causes and consequences of these failures, and will examine what industry and regulators are doing to promote operational resilience.”
The inquiry, which will be chaired by an independent adjudicator, is welcoming submissions from relevant stakeholders by Friday 18 January 2019.