TSB is to end IT outsourcing projects and bring control of its banking platform and technology back in house, after a series of IT meltdowns left millions of customers locked out of their online banking last year.
In a statement, the bank said it was discontinuing arrangements with with Sabis, a tech subsidiary of parent company Banco Sabadell and other technology partners.
The decision comes after a botched migration to a new IT platform in April 2018 triggered a series of outages that left 1.9 million customers locked out of online banking, costing the company £330 million and leading to the resignation of longstanding chief executive Paul Pester.
It comes after Josep Oliu, chairman of Banco Sabadell Group, told reporters that TSB would need a three-year turnaround and cost-cutting plan before it could be a candidate for sale or consolidation, after the IT issues led to significant costs for the Spanish banking giant.
In a statement, TSB said it had applied fixes to the new Proteo4 banking platform and that employees were “seeing its stability improve”.
However, as part of the plan to prevent future issues, TSB said it would need “closer control over our technology”, including “changing the way we contract and work with Sabis and other technology suppliers, while also finding cost effective ways to serve our customers better”.
The statement added: “In the coming months, we will take direct ownership of our banking platform, including direct contractual relationships with the third party technology suppliers. At the same time, we also want to build significant new technology capability in TSB in order to allow us to innovate faster.”
As part of the shift in technology strategy, Mike Errington, who has been with TSB for three months, has been appointed chief information officer, with a brief to take full ownership of the platform and create new technology capability within TSB.
Carlos Abarca has been appointed chief technology innovation officer, with a brief to help position TSB for the future, utilising his extensive knowledge of platform capabilities.
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