TSB hires IBM to overhaul IT after 2018 issues

Under the deal, IBM will run take control over the running of TSB’s ATMs, digital banking and high street branches. The bank’s credit risk and collections functions will see no major changes.

The announcement forms part of the bank’s pledge to invest £120m to transforming its digital channels by 2022.

In April 2018, around two million customers lost access to their online banking services after a botched introduction of a new computer system. The problems left customers unable to access their accounts or make payments, while others were shown incorrect information, and in some cases the details of other people’s accounts.

The issues stemmed from when TSB split from Lloyds Banking Group. It continued to rent a banking platform from Lloyds while it constructed its own, Proteo4UK. The problems persisted for months, and in September 2018, chief executive Pester stepped down over the issues. He has since been replaced by Debbie Crosbie.

The services agreement will see IBM build and manage TSB’s private cloud environment, running services across TSB’s core banking platforms with all of the infrastructure being operated and managed by IBM under supervision by TSB. TSB hopes that by hosting and managing select services on a private cloud, operated by IBM, it will be able to strengthen its IT resilience and “leverage higher value technology”, including AI, to deliver “cloud-native” services to its customers.

As part of the deal, TSB will itself also create a technology centre in Edinburgh, creating around 100 IT jobs.

TSB’s chief operating officer, Suresh Viswanathan, said: “Our partnership with IBM marks the next exciting phase in our tech transformation. At a time when both the pace of change and the customer demand for new services is increasing, our partnership ensures our digital offering remains competitive and allows us to act faster to meet the needs of TSB customers.”