The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has announced a promise to invest a further £150 ($238) million a year to improve the resilience of its IT systems following its most recent IT failure that resulted in more than 600,000 transactions not completing properly. The pledge of renewed investment in IT infrastructure came as chief administrative officer Simon McNamara presented at an investor meeting.
Commenting on the failure, McNamara said,
“Technology will on occasion fail. If and when that occurs, we need to ensure we can mask the impact on customers and recover as quickly and effectively as possible. It is important that it is handled well and competently.”
With consumer payment and banking preferences increasingly shifting to digital channels, the importance of maintaining robust IT infrastructure is paramount. While the RBS Group has already shifted resources and prioritized these digital channels, the further spending on IT will not only benefit the customer banking experience but ensure that the backend systems are able to cope which in turn also improve the customer banking experience as failures like this are less likely to occur.
Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Service
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