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BACKCHAT / DIARY Backchat Backchat Awards, because you can’t have too many awards, right? A
The Colossal, Costly Cockup of the Year Award goes to (drum roll, please) Royal Bank of Scotland. Earlier this year, Infosys announced plans to ‘ramp down’ around 3,000 roles after RBS cancelled a $300 million contract involving the launch of Williams & Glyn (W&G) as a standalone bank.
Yes, you read that right, Infosys had 3,000 people working on the project as it helped to create and test the systems that would underpin the new look W&G. Yet the initiative, which involved extricating the venture from RBS’s creaking legacy systems and migrating to a new platform, was plagued by delays and cost £1.5 billion. RBS, which let us not forget is 73% owned by the British taxpayer, “concluded the risks and costs inherent in the programme are such that it would not be prudent to continue.” It has to sell W&G’s 300 branches and assets as a condition of European Commission rules for receiving a £45 billion bailout in 2008. Cue the likes of Santander and Clydesdale & Yorkshire Bank prepping offers.
Wells Fargo is the winner of our Keeping Banking Sleazy Award. This is in recognition of it being slapped with a $185 million fine for employees opening over 1.5 million unauthorised deposit and credit card accounts in order to hit sales targets and receive bonuses.
Staff funded the accounts by transferring money from customers’ authorised accounts without permission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney said. They also created fake PIN numbers and email addresses to enrol customers in online services. The FI has fired 5,300 employees. And the cherry on this ‘best before 2007’ cake is the exec who presided over the whole sorry affair, Carrie Tolstedt, departed in July with a $124.6 million bonus.
And last but not least, the Move Along, Nothing To See Here Award…The UK’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said in May that formal charges would not be levelled against Royal Bank of Scotland’s former senior directors, including Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin, for their part in misleading shareholders prior to the bank’s 2008 collapse.
As someone (off the record, natch) once remarked to IBS Journal: “In Iceland, dodgy bankers go to prison for a very long time. In the UK, they get knighthoods.”
IN THE NEXT ISSUE Feature Focus: Core Banking Systems s 2016 draws to a close, we bring you the winners of the inaugural Diary
FEBRUARY 7-8: FinovateEurope 2017, London
http://europe2017.finovate.com
MARCH
28-29: MEFTECH 2017, Abu Dhabi
www.meftech.ae
OCTOBER
4-5: PayExpo Europe 2017, London
www.payexpo.com
16-19: Sibos 2017, Toronto
www.sibos.com
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