​The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined the Royal Bank of Scotland, National Westminster Bank, and Ulster Bank £42 million for IT failures which occurred in June 2012 and meant that the banks' customers could not access banking services. The FCA has taken this action against the banks for failing to put in place resilient IT systems which could withstand, or minimise the risk of, IT failures. The actual cause of the IT incident was a software compatibility problem with the underlying cause being the banks' failure to put in place adequate systems and controls to identify and manage their exposure to IT risks. The IT failure affected more than 6.5 million customers in the United Kingdom for several weeks. Over the course of that period customers could not use online banking facilities to access their accounts or obtain accurate account balances from ATMs; customers were unable to make timely mortgage payments; customers were left without cash in foreign countries.

Compliance Complete news team