NatWest Customer Payments Are 'Missing'

RBS (LSE: RBS.L - news) has confirmed its customers are again experiencing the effects of a technical glitch as account payments go "missing".

RBS' press office said a glitch with overnight payment processes had now been fixed though it will take time for transactions to be resolved. This issue has affected 600,000 transactions across RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank. An investigation will begin in due course.

RBS sought to reassure customers by communicating: "We will ensure no customers are left out of pocket as a result of this issue".

At 07:47 this morning the Natwest Help Twitter account tweeted the following message: "Some Customer payments are missing this morning – we are investigating this issue as a matter of urgency".

A minute later it added: "We are looking into fixing this ASAP and funds will show as normal once the system is back to normal".

Twitter (Xetra: A1W6XZ - news) is now awash with complaints directed towards the bank: "What's going on this morning I woke up to money that should be in my account not there the payment's been sent so it should be in".

Tax credits are amongst the payments that haven't been made and HMRC are experiencing higher call volumes as a result.

NatWest has been plagued by embarrassing technical glitches and IT failures. In 2013 its online service was disrupted by a denial-of-service attack.

NatWest communicated instructions for affected customers on its Twitter account: "If you have been affected and need to access funds today, please contact us 03457 888444 or visit your branch".

RBS' most recent annual report said this: "The vulnerabilities of the Group’s IT systems are due to the complexity of the Group’s IT infrastructure attributable in part to overlapping multiple legacy systems resulting from the Group’s acquisitions and the consequential gaps in how the IT systems operate, and insufficient-investments in IT infrastructure in the past, creating challenges in recovering from system breakdowns"

In June 2012, computer system failures prevented NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank customers from accessing accounts in both the UK and Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) .

Ongoing issues relating to the failure continued for several months, requiring RBS to set aside a provision for compensation to customers who suffered losses as a result of the system failure. In addition, in November 2014, RBS reached a settlement with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in relation to this incident and agreed a penalty of £42m with the FCA and £14m with the PRA.