IBS Journal January 2016


Barclays suffers another online banking glitch


Barclays has suffered a technical glitch, resulting in its digital and mobile banking services going offline for several hours. The problems occurred around noon


(GMT) on Monday 7th December, with cus- tomers complaining about being unable to withdraw cash or make payments with their cards. The bank told users through Twitter


that it was ‘seeing some issues across all of our digital channels’. As often happens on social media,


many people tweeted their anger or annoyance about being unable to pay bills or properly check their accounts. Barclays announced that the issues were completely resolved around 5pm


(GMT) on the same day. This is the third time in recent memo-


ry that Barclays has experienced technical issues with its online services. The end of October saw some problems, while Bar- clays’ services suffered a glitch during ‘rou- tine maintenance’ as British Summer Time ended on 24th October. Overall, it’s been a bad year for Barclays. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authori-


ty (FCA) fined the bank £72 million for its ‘poor handling’ of financial crime risks. This is the largest fine that has been


imposed by the FCA and its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), for financial crime failings. The FCA says the failings relate to


a £1.88 billion transaction that Barclays arranged and executed in 2011 and 2012 for a number of ultra high net-worth clients. Barclays also recently announced plans


to cut 30,000 jobs by the end of 2017 as part of its latest cost-cutting strategy. The planned massive cull follows the


sacking of chief executive Antony Jenkins. He lost the confidence of the bank’s board. Jenkins’ emotions will probably be soothed by the ‘golden goodbye’ of £28 million ($43.7 million) received in cash and shares. If the job cuts go ahead, Barclays’ glob-


al workforce will plummet from 132,000 to about 100,000.


Antony Peyton


Darlington Building Society launches ‘major online project’ with QTS


UK-based Darlington Building Society has embarked on what it’s describing as ‘a major online project’ with digital systems supplier QTS. The vendor will be supplying its Q-Bro-


ker platform, Q-View and Q-SAP platforms to host a number of banking services online for Darlington Building Society. Customers of the society will also be


able to access services via a new mobile app, supported by QTS’s Q-Mobile platform. The first phase of the project has


already gone live, using Q-Broker for mort- gage application processing under the name ‘Darlingtonline’. The system will allow document scanning, instant key facts illus- trations (KFIs) and online communication between customers and representatives of the building society during the whole process. The digital project is part of a wider


review orchestrated by Darlington Build- ing Society, aimed at increasing customer engagement and supplementing the exist- ing branch network, which spans 15 sites across County Durham and the surround- ing area.


20


The eponymous Darlington town © Dan892k9, Wikipedia


The building society, based in its epon-


ymous town, was founded in 1946 and holds assets of around £520 million. QTS was also behind a ‘root and


branch’ overhaul at a UK-based SME lender, Cambridge & Counties Bank, in 2013. QTS operates out of Milton Keynes in


the UK. Its customers include Nationwide Building Society, Cambridge Building Soci-


© IBS Intelligence 2016 www.ibsintelligence.com


ety, Cumberland Building Society and Bath Building Society. It also has long-standing partnerships


with local providers of back office software, such as Phoebus Software and Mutual Vision Building Society Software, to sup- plement their processing systems with its front-end solutions.


Alex Hamilton


digital round-up


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