Nine major banks and construction companies operating in the United Kingdom have accumulated at least 803 hours – the equivalent of 33 days – of technological problems in the past two years, the figures published by a group of deputies show.
The Treasury Committee – which investigated the impact of banking breakdowns – forced Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, Santander, Natwest, Danske Bank, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank to provide data.
It does not include Barclays failure in January or the Lloyds breakdown last week – two incidents that occurred on the day of remuneration for many people and left customers unable to pay their staff and invoices.
The report concludes that Barclays could now face payments of remuneration of 12.5 million pounds sterling.
The president of the selective committee of the Treasury, Dame Meg Hillier MP, said: “For families and individuals who live a pay check to pay the check, lose access to banking services on payroll day can be a terrifying experience.”
The data of the Treasury Committee examined the failures that affected millions of customers between January 2023 and February this year. They discovered that there had been 158 incidents.
Although the data does not include Barclays’ breakdown in January, which left a homeless family, the bank confirmed to the Committee that more than half of online payments in three days did not work due to the “serious degradation” of the performance of their system.
The bank confirmed to the committee that it planned to pay between 5 and 7.5 million pounds of compensation for customers for “drawback or distress”.
Taking into account all the information shared by Barclays, this means that the bank could pay up to 12.5 million pounds of compensation sterling due to breakdowns in the past two years.
The second highest amount paid by a company during the same period is £ 350,000 from the Bank of Ireland.
