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I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for

I have been affected by this over the past week or so. I've been on holiday, and came back to a house with no fresh food, and no working bank account to pay for any, so I've been eating processed shite out of the freezer like a student for four days, and it's making me feel a bit poorly, not to mention the freezer is starting to look a little bare. I haven't had breakfast for days, and I have about two meals left if I stretch it. Surely this isn't acceptable in 2012? Perhaps a little less seriously than the effect on my health from a lack of fresh food, I was paid my monthly salary yesterday, and that hasn't appeared in my account. I'm assuming that it'll appear in the next few days, but if it doesn't, I can't purchase the car I'd arranged to buy on Friday. It's all a massive balls-up and affecting my life in so many random ways. Can any British readers recommend any alternative banks? I'm based in the centre of Sheffield, so I have the choice of pretty much all of them.

geoffw8 14y ago
I'm 22, so you might say I haven't experienced the full spectrum of banking products, but for what I have used I really like HSBC. Always quick to answer the phone, and maybe not so specific to their service levels but they were one of the few banks to not take bailout cash if I remember rightly. They have their First Direct offering too, which gives you a higher interest rate for less face-time. You still get to use parts of the HSBC branches too. Hope all ends well for you sir!
- tonyedgecombe 14y ago
  I just switched my business to HSBC and have found the service to be very good.
- yardie 14y ago
  We're refinancing our house through HSBC and our account manager has been exceptionally nice. It's a premier account so we're still trying to get a handle on the different and new fees (recommended because we do a lot of intl travel).
davedx 14y ago
I've been with the Nationwide for years now, and never had a problem with them. Being a building society they're a bit less profit driven, though I don't know if anything can protect against offshore cost-cutting exercises in this day and age :/
- objclxt 14y ago
  One of the problems with a large-scale outage for a large financial institution is it will cascade down to other banks. So if a bank the size of RBS/NatWest (comparable to Bank of America, or Chase) falls over and you don't have an account it might not affect you - unless your employer uses that bank to carry out their pay runs, in which case you're not going to get paid. Several newspapers were reporting people whose house purchases fell through because their solicitors were using NatWest as an intermediary. (I actually bank with Nationwide as well, although their online service is a bit odd. Then again, when is that not true for a bank?)
pja 14y ago
The Co-Op? (Although rumour has it that they're going to completely replace their computer systems either this year or early next year so that might be a case of jumping from one basket case to another!) RBS appears to have fouled up the scheduling of their overnight batch run in a way that meant large tranches of transactions simply weren't going through the system. Fixing the problem has taken days (which may be down to poorly managed outsourcing) and it's then taking even more time to catch up with the backlog of unregistered transactions, because they can only fit so many extra into the overnight run. If you've got a pay slip or something, then get yourself to an RBS branch and they'll give you cash to tide you over in the meantime. Don't starve yourself!
- andyking 14y ago
  I can't use the Co-op. They won't let me have an account because I apparently have a bad credit rating. (The real reason, I expect, is because I have no credit rating as I've never applied for a credit card or loan, or been late on a bill.) They're probably overdue a computer system overhaul as they've recently taken over several other banks and building societies, notably the Britannia where I had a few friends working. My pay now seems to have appeared, and my second account doesn't have £0.00 in it any more, so I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be able to go to Tesco tonight. I might go to the branch and get cash though, just in case I get the dreaded 'card declined'.
  - pja 14y ago
    It's worth having a credit card just for the cushion it gives you in exactly these kind of circumstances tbh.
    - jmaskell 14y ago
      It's also worth using a credit card for the added protection and other benefits (see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/credit-card-tips http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/credit-card-tips). Just make sure you pay off the balance in full each month so you never get stung by interest.
    - 14y ago
bitdiffusion 14y ago
I've used a few and ultimately ended up at HSBC for my business and personal account. Haven't had any problems so far (touch wood) and been pretty impressed so far with the service. If I remember correctly, they were one of the few banks to come out the back of the banking crisis largely unscathed. Convinced a few friends to move too and have had good feedback so far (but ymmv as usual).
stevejalim 14y ago
+1 for First Direct, but don't take my word for it: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-a...
- rjknight 14y ago
  Ditto. I had actually decided to move away from Natwest before this outage - as part of RBS acquiring some bank branches from one of the other bankrupt banks, the EU competition authorities forced them to sell some of their accounts to Santander, and they thought it would be a good idea to sell half of my accounts (business and personal credit card) whilst retaining the other half (personal, savings and joint account). Given that I would crawl over broken glass rather than use Santander, this prompted me to think about alternatives and duly switch my personal banking to First Direct (which took a matter of minutes and has worked perfectly), and my business banking will go to either HSBC or Barclays (under consideration because Barclays offer data feeds which I can pipe directly into FreeAgent).
  - geden 14y ago
    Ditto the Ditto - but note that Note all Barclays account are available for feed into FreeAgent. My Business Account was not. Had a hilarious few days speaking to various Barclays people who didn't know the service existed, or that Barclays even had a Data Services division.
JonWood 14y ago
I moved from Natwest to First Direct a couple of months ago, and have had a great experience so far. Their online banking isn't quite so nice as Natwest's, but that's more than made up for by the amazing phone service. I've had to call a couple of times (once to replace a lost card), and almost instantly been put through to someone who can solve my problem.
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
  I have been with First Direct for a few years and I really like it, wouldn't move. It's good for people like me who want to interact with their bank firstly online, and secondly on the phone, and in person at a branch at a distant third. First Direct is entirely owned by HSBC - it's essentially a branch of HSBC on the internet not the high street. If you need to deposit a paper cheque or the like you will be directed to a HSBC branch.
- timthorn 14y ago
  First Direct has no 2FA barrier to online banking, which is one of the key reasons I moved to them from Barclays (who were mostly a decent bank in fairness).
  - bonaldi 14y ago
    Same here, although they have recently changed the wording of their T&Cs to include 2FA. I asked them about this, and they said they were considering its introduction. (HSBC already has it). Also, they use that "second letter from your password" style of login, and I'm not sure how they're doing that without keeping the plaintext of the whole password somewhere.
maxer 14y ago
I have been using hsbc for business banking and haven't had a complaint. You just need to warn them when you travel or they will block your card.
- cturner 14y ago
  Agree - HSBC - good experience for me. I've been with HSBC UK for personal use for about five years. Their online banking is what I'd expect - allows for low-hassle international FX transfers, security seems solid, stuff works, no user interface horror. On the phone they're consistently helpful. Like the parent, they block my card the moment I do too many transactions with new overseas providers without warning them. But they sort it out quickly if you call and verify.
rlpb 14y ago
> Surely this isn't acceptable in 2012? If you depend so much on one single provider then you have a problem, not the system. Get some redundancy. Get at least one other bank account. Get a credit card, or two. Keep some emergency cash lying around.
- nicholassmith 14y ago
  "Get some redundancy. Get at least one other bank account. Get a credit card, or two. Keep some emergency cash lying around." Possibly as a banking customer you'd expect the bank you're with to have a level of redundancy on their key infrastructure.
  - rlpb 14y ago
    I would expect so, but I also would not rely on it.
- petercooper 14y ago
  Get a credit card, or two. This is the thing. Credit cards are the perfect solution here (and in many other situations), but there's a hard core of people who have some sort of ethical disagreement with them.
  - adrianhoward 14y ago
    there's a hard core of people who have some sort of ethical disagreement with them I (as a matter of choice) don't have any credit cards. I have no ethical problem with them. I do have an excellent idea what the results of my incredible lack of will power and a credit card will be though :-)
UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
My only advice: Avoid Santander.
Paul_S 14y ago
I recommend asking a friend to lend you the money. Also, always carry cash on you (25 quid, enough for a weekly shop).
petercooper 14y ago
Can any British readers recommend any alternative banks? Fair enough, but this isn't endemic to RBS. It's like looking for a new neighborhood to move to if your cat gets run over.
- kintamanimatt 14y ago
  It's not really like that at all. It's worthwhile having a backup account at an alternate bank (that's obviously not within the same banking group), for the same reason we make backups of our data -- things happen. It's nice to know there's a second debit card and a chunk of change in another account should anything happen.
prehensile 14y ago
This thread is relevant to my interests: I'm totally going to switch when I can actually get at my cash. If the problem has been because of cuts to & outsourcing of IT staff, we can only assume there'll be more of them. So, here's a question: does anyone know what the frontline IT setups of other UK banks are like? There'd be no point in jumping to an outfit which has similarly weak infrastructure.
- ars 14y ago
  If you're going to switch, why wait? You can have more than one account at a time. Open the new one, and start using it. When you have access to your old account, write yourself a check and deposit it in the new account. It's that easy. You don't have to officially "close" the account and withdraw the cash. Once your balance is zero in the old account, give them a call and confirm that you want it closed, but at least in the US banks will auto close zero balance accounts after a little while.
  - lmm 14y ago
    Over here they tend to deliberately keep them open (and will encourage you to leave 5 pounds in there to do so), presumably to inflate their statistics.
adrianhoward 14y ago
Can any British readers recommend any alternative banks? Consider building societies. I've been very happy with the Nationwide for twenty odd years. Online banking is pretty good. Also, because of their organisational structure, building societies seem to have weathered the various banking stupidities of the last few years considerably better then some.
- Terretta 14y ago
  For personal and small business banking that crosses borders, I'm partial to HSBC's systems and practices which feel somewhat less unethical than most, though I cannot attest whether those are the same in their UK home as they are in the smattering of branches in New England.
corford 14y ago
I'd strongly recommend Nationwide. Their staff are always friendly and helpful, it's a building society and their online banking site shits all over Natwest's offering (I had a NW account up until a year or so ago).
Zirro 14y ago
I keep the equivalent of about 500 USD in cash at a "hidden" spot in my apartment, in case something bad temporarily would happen to my bank account. Not enough for it to hurt if it was stolen, but enough to last for a while (I am a student). Perhaps that's something you could consider once this mess is sorted.
megablast 14y ago
So you have one bank account, and no one to borrow money from?

geoffw8 14y ago

I'm 22, so you might say I haven't experienced the full spectrum of banking products, but for what I have used I really like HSBC. Always quick to answer the phone, and maybe not so specific to their service levels but they were one of the few banks to not take bailout cash if I remember rightly. They have their First Direct offering too, which gives you a higher interest rate for less face-time. You still get to use parts of the HSBC branches too. Hope all ends well for you sir!

tonyedgecombe 14y ago
I just switched my business to HSBC and have found the service to be very good.
yardie 14y ago
We're refinancing our house through HSBC and our account manager has been exceptionally nice. It's a premier account so we're still trying to get a handle on the different and new fees (recommended because we do a lot of intl travel).

davedx 14y ago

I've been with the Nationwide for years now, and never had a problem with them. Being a building society they're a bit less profit driven, though I don't know if anything can protect against offshore cost-cutting exercises in this day and age :/

objclxt 14y ago
One of the problems with a large-scale outage for a large financial institution is it will cascade down to other banks. So if a bank the size of RBS/NatWest (comparable to Bank of America, or Chase) falls over and you don't have an account it might not affect you - unless your employer uses that bank to carry out their pay runs, in which case you're not going to get paid. Several newspapers were reporting people whose house purchases fell through because their solicitors were using NatWest as an intermediary. (I actually bank with Nationwide as well, although their online service is a bit odd. Then again, when is that not true for a bank?)

pja 14y ago

The Co-Op? (Although rumour has it that they're going to completely replace their computer systems either this year or early next year so that might be a case of jumping from one basket case to another!) RBS appears to have fouled up the scheduling of their overnight batch run in a way that meant large tranches of transactions simply weren't going through the system. Fixing the problem has taken days (which may be down to poorly managed outsourcing) and it's then taking even more time to catch up with the backlog of unregistered transactions, because they can only fit so many extra into the overnight run. If you've got a pay slip or something, then get yourself to an RBS branch and they'll give you cash to tide you over in the meantime. Don't starve yourself!

andyking 14y ago
I can't use the Co-op. They won't let me have an account because I apparently have a bad credit rating. (The real reason, I expect, is because I have no credit rating as I've never applied for a credit card or loan, or been late on a bill.) They're probably overdue a computer system overhaul as they've recently taken over several other banks and building societies, notably the Britannia where I had a few friends working. My pay now seems to have appeared, and my second account doesn't have £0.00 in it any more, so I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be able to go to Tesco tonight. I might go to the branch and get cash though, just in case I get the dreaded 'card declined'.
- pja 14y ago
  It's worth having a credit card just for the cushion it gives you in exactly these kind of circumstances tbh.
  - jmaskell 14y ago
    It's also worth using a credit card for the added protection and other benefits (see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/credit-card-tips http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/credit-card-tips). Just make sure you pay off the balance in full each month so you never get stung by interest.
  - 14y ago

bitdiffusion 14y ago

I've used a few and ultimately ended up at HSBC for my business and personal account. Haven't had any problems so far (touch wood) and been pretty impressed so far with the service. If I remember correctly, they were one of the few banks to come out the back of the banking crisis largely unscathed. Convinced a few friends to move too and have had good feedback so far (but ymmv as usual).

stevejalim 14y ago

+1 for First Direct, but don't take my word for it: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-a...

rjknight 14y ago
Ditto. I had actually decided to move away from Natwest before this outage - as part of RBS acquiring some bank branches from one of the other bankrupt banks, the EU competition authorities forced them to sell some of their accounts to Santander, and they thought it would be a good idea to sell half of my accounts (business and personal credit card) whilst retaining the other half (personal, savings and joint account). Given that I would crawl over broken glass rather than use Santander, this prompted me to think about alternatives and duly switch my personal banking to First Direct (which took a matter of minutes and has worked perfectly), and my business banking will go to either HSBC or Barclays (under consideration because Barclays offer data feeds which I can pipe directly into FreeAgent).
- geden 14y ago
  Ditto the Ditto - but note that Note all Barclays account are available for feed into FreeAgent. My Business Account was not. Had a hilarious few days speaking to various Barclays people who didn't know the service existed, or that Barclays even had a Data Services division.

JonWood 14y ago

I moved from Natwest to First Direct a couple of months ago, and have had a great experience so far. Their online banking isn't quite so nice as Natwest's, but that's more than made up for by the amazing phone service. I've had to call a couple of times (once to replace a lost card), and almost instantly been put through to someone who can solve my problem.

SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
I have been with First Direct for a few years and I really like it, wouldn't move. It's good for people like me who want to interact with their bank firstly online, and secondly on the phone, and in person at a branch at a distant third. First Direct is entirely owned by HSBC - it's essentially a branch of HSBC on the internet not the high street. If you need to deposit a paper cheque or the like you will be directed to a HSBC branch.
timthorn 14y ago
First Direct has no 2FA barrier to online banking, which is one of the key reasons I moved to them from Barclays (who were mostly a decent bank in fairness).
- bonaldi 14y ago
  Same here, although they have recently changed the wording of their T&Cs to include 2FA. I asked them about this, and they said they were considering its introduction. (HSBC already has it). Also, they use that "second letter from your password" style of login, and I'm not sure how they're doing that without keeping the plaintext of the whole password somewhere.

maxer 14y ago

I have been using hsbc for business banking and haven't had a complaint. You just need to warn them when you travel or they will block your card.

cturner 14y ago
Agree - HSBC - good experience for me. I've been with HSBC UK for personal use for about five years. Their online banking is what I'd expect - allows for low-hassle international FX transfers, security seems solid, stuff works, no user interface horror. On the phone they're consistently helpful. Like the parent, they block my card the moment I do too many transactions with new overseas providers without warning them. But they sort it out quickly if you call and verify.

rlpb 14y ago

> Surely this isn't acceptable in 2012? If you depend so much on one single provider then you have a problem, not the system. Get some redundancy. Get at least one other bank account. Get a credit card, or two. Keep some emergency cash lying around.

nicholassmith 14y ago
"Get some redundancy. Get at least one other bank account. Get a credit card, or two. Keep some emergency cash lying around." Possibly as a banking customer you'd expect the bank you're with to have a level of redundancy on their key infrastructure.
- rlpb 14y ago
  I would expect so, but I also would not rely on it.
petercooper 14y ago
Get a credit card, or two. This is the thing. Credit cards are the perfect solution here (and in many other situations), but there's a hard core of people who have some sort of ethical disagreement with them.
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  there's a hard core of people who have some sort of ethical disagreement with them I (as a matter of choice) don't have any credit cards. I have no ethical problem with them. I do have an excellent idea what the results of my incredible lack of will power and a credit card will be though :-)

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago

My only advice: Avoid Santander.

Paul_S 14y ago

I recommend asking a friend to lend you the money. Also, always carry cash on you (25 quid, enough for a weekly shop).

petercooper 14y ago

Can any British readers recommend any alternative banks? Fair enough, but this isn't endemic to RBS. It's like looking for a new neighborhood to move to if your cat gets run over.

kintamanimatt 14y ago
It's not really like that at all. It's worthwhile having a backup account at an alternate bank (that's obviously not within the same banking group), for the same reason we make backups of our data -- things happen. It's nice to know there's a second debit card and a chunk of change in another account should anything happen.

prehensile 14y ago

This thread is relevant to my interests: I'm totally going to switch when I can actually get at my cash. If the problem has been because of cuts to & outsourcing of IT staff, we can only assume there'll be more of them. So, here's a question: does anyone know what the frontline IT setups of other UK banks are like? There'd be no point in jumping to an outfit which has similarly weak infrastructure.

ars 14y ago
If you're going to switch, why wait? You can have more than one account at a time. Open the new one, and start using it. When you have access to your old account, write yourself a check and deposit it in the new account. It's that easy. You don't have to officially "close" the account and withdraw the cash. Once your balance is zero in the old account, give them a call and confirm that you want it closed, but at least in the US banks will auto close zero balance accounts after a little while.
- lmm 14y ago
  Over here they tend to deliberately keep them open (and will encourage you to leave 5 pounds in there to do so), presumably to inflate their statistics.

adrianhoward 14y ago

Can any British readers recommend any alternative banks? Consider building societies. I've been very happy with the Nationwide for twenty odd years. Online banking is pretty good. Also, because of their organisational structure, building societies seem to have weathered the various banking stupidities of the last few years considerably better then some.

Terretta 14y ago
For personal and small business banking that crosses borders, I'm partial to HSBC's systems and practices which feel somewhat less unethical than most, though I cannot attest whether those are the same in their UK home as they are in the smattering of branches in New England.

corford 14y ago

I'd strongly recommend Nationwide. Their staff are always friendly and helpful, it's a building society and their online banking site shits all over Natwest's offering (I had a NW account up until a year or so ago).

Zirro 14y ago

I keep the equivalent of about 500 USD in cash at a "hidden" spot in my apartment, in case something bad temporarily would happen to my bank account. Not enough for it to hurt if it was stolen, but enough to last for a while (I am a student). Perhaps that's something you could consider once this mess is sorted.

megablast 14y ago

So you have one bank account, and no one to borrow money from?