TSB Hires New Transformation Boss After Epic IT Failure
Poisoned chalice? Mark Curran “looking forward” to be responsible for IT restructuring at bank
TSB has appointed Mark Curran as director of Technology Transformation, and he will be responsible for restructuring the IT systems at the bank.
TSB of course was engulfed in an IT fiasco in April 2018 that left half of its online banking customers unable to access their accounts.
The problems began when TSB moved its five million customers and their 1.3 billion records from a banking platform it was renting from former owner (Lloyds Banking Group) to its new ‘state-of-the-art’ platform developed by its Spanish-owner Sabadell.
IT meltdown
But things rapidly went wrong and TSB customers who managed to get access to their online accounts, were often presented with details of other people’s accounts.
Other TSB customers were unable to log on, others had passwords problems, and some saw other people’s funds transferred into their own bank accounts.
Pester at the time repeatedly apologised for the crisis and admitted the bank was “on its knees”. He also called in experts from IBM to help with the issue.
The IT fiasco resulted in TSB’s chief executive Paul Pester stepping down in September 2018, despite his repeated apologies to customers.
Pester had been in charge of TSB for seven years, and his resignations pleased some MPs on the Treasury select committee.
However some felt that Pester took the blame for TSB’s Spanish owner Banco de Sabadell, and its chaotic data migration process, which cost TSB an estimated £330m.
IBM eventually had to be hired to help deal with the mess.
New hire
Into all of this comes Mark Curran, appointed as director of Technology Transformation at TSB.
According to Computer Weekly, Curran will head a project that the bank announced in March to transfer control of IT to an internal team, from the tech subsidiary of its parent company, Sabadell.
It is reported that the project ownership of IT, including the Proteo4UK platform, will be transitioned from Sabadell-owned supplier Sabis to the TSB in-house IT team.
Curran will apparently report to CIO Mike Errington, and he has worked in the banking IT sector for 30 years.
In a previous role, Curran was director of payments technical services at Lloyds Banking Group.
Curran told Computer Weekly he is looking forward to helping TSB deliver the changes to its IT operating model.
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