Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Why do bank IT systems keep failing?
by
empoweoqwj
on 28/01/2014, 19:14:55 UTC
Why do bank IT systems keep failing?

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jan/27/bank-it-systems-keep-failing-lloyds-rbs-natwest

"Lloyds, RBS and NatWest customers have all been locked out of ATMs or unable to use their cards at check-outs. A lack of investment is only compounding the problem."


Because IT systems are programmed by people, and people make mistakes.

Halon said "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." But he's wrong when it comes to banking systems. I think when you say "mistakes" it should similarly be in quotation marks.  Nearly every one of these faults I've looked at were deliberately built in.  Sometimes you even read comments where the programmer is off with a stream of profanities about how they were told to do this that or t'other against their better judgement.  And they were right.  Grin

Yes, my brother-in-law works programming satellites and there is no end of "mistakes" that creep in, mostly because of management interference in one way or another.