Ulster Bank customers still locked out of accounts by RBS IT crisis

The problems, initially dismissed as a glitch, have almost completely been cleared up at the main RBS and NatWest banks after a ten-day struggle. But there appears little end in sight for the crisis at its sister bank, Ulster. Businesses and individuals in Northern Ireland have complained about the difficulties of running out of cash and being treated like “second-class citizens”. The Belfast-based bank, which also has branches in the Irish Republic, has 1.9m customers, with an estimated 100,000 unable to access their money. The chairman of RBS, Sir Philip Hampton flew to Belfast in an attempt to mollify angry customers. He said what had happened was “completely unacceptable” and staff were working “flat-out” to clear the backlog. Sir Philip added said the computer failures “should never have happened”.