TSB outage: CEO Paul Pester quits after IT meltdown

TSB CEO Paul Pester has quit the British bank following its ongoing IT migration problems that go back as far as April.

Users of TSB online services found themselves locked out of their accounts and are still experiencing problems five months on.

Richard Meddings will step into Pester's vacant positions, as the bank searches for a suitable replacement, and, in a statement, he admitted the issues were yet to be fully resolved.

"Although there is more to do to achieve full stability for customers, the bank's IT systems and services are much improved since the IT migration," he said.

"Paul and the Board have therefore agreed that this is the right time to appoint a new CEO for TSB.

"Together with the Executive Committee, we have three immediate priorities: to complete the work of putting things right for customers; to enable the bank to achieve full functionality, including the availability of all product services and launch of a leading Business Banking offer; and appointing a CEO for the next chapter of TSB."

Pester had been the CEO of TSB for seven years, but his position came under heavy fire after customers experienced problems with their banking apps. Following a migration from it's old IT system, the bank experienced a number of technical difficulties that saw customers locked out of their accounts and other customers having access to strangers; bank accounts.

Despite Pester and the bank claiming that they were on top of the issue and that it had been resolved, there were further outages over the summer and even as recently as last weekend.

Pester was accused of being complacent by MPs from the Treasury select committee in June and the Financial Conduct Authority had also accused him of "portraying an optimistic view" of TSB services during the IT meltdown.

"The last few months have been challenging for everyone at TSB. However, I want to thank all my colleagues across TSB for their dedication and commitment during this period and for their focus on putting things right for TSB customers," Pester said in a statement.

17/8/2018: TSB website falls over again

TSB's website has suffered from another outage, just months after a mammoth week-long IT catastrophe led to CEO Paul Pester facing sharp questions from the government.

Although this latest bout of downtime only lasted for approximately half an hour - significantly less than its previous problems - this didn't stop the company's customers taking to social networks to complain about the issues.

Customers also reported problems contacting TSB's customer support, preventing them from receiving updates on the situation, with one customer reporting that the company's phone lines were "completely jammed".

The company responded to the problems, saying: "Good afternoon. We're really sorry that some of our customers experienced temporary issues with our banking services for around 30 minutes this morning. This issue has now been resolved. We'd like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience this may have caused."

A spokesperson added: "We're really sorry that some of our customers experienced temporary issues with our banking services." However, it hasn't said what went wrong this time or how it was resolved.

The company is still recovering from the disastrous IT migration which cost the company 200 million, after which the bank was forced to bring in IBM as consultants.