For those who were calling for no government bailouts for the banks in 2008 (including the incumbent chancellor), just imagine what carnage would've ensued had Northern Rock and RBS been allowed to fail.

I can't believe their systems are 30 years old? That's 1982. That's when a PC was the stuff of a madmans dream

Can this really be true?

If it's not broke, don't fix it. Clearly some fool tried to integrate the Euro 2012 fixtures into their calendars and destroyed the system.

I remember the panic about the year 2000. It was reported then that some systems were 20 years old and might microwave themselves when the millenium struck. I remember my Gran attempting to draw £37,000 out of her account the week before Christmas because of it and how my Mum had to physically remove her from the branch.

Software that old generally requires old hardware to run on (at least spec. wise). The company I work for was recently involved in writing a replacement for just such an old (and business critical) system a client had. The main driver was that it was becoming increasingly difficult to source replacement hardware to run the old code on.

Let's hope it is just the IT system and not a liquidity crisis being hidden behind an IT excuse. Could be a problem this week - big backlog of payments to process, annoyed customers taking money out and month end payments. That alone could stretch liquidity. Interesting that HMG / BoE have been panicking of late about liquidity in the banking system and just last week announced the £100 billion. Are the two connected? if RBS is bust then so is Britain.

It's true (I used to work there and use the system occasionally myself).

Most of the established retail banks run systems that are 20-30 years old. As this incident demonstrates it is incredibly difficult for a retail bank to upgrade or otherwise change the systems it uses. The potential for chaos is huge.

I'm with the RBS and I've not been affected at all. That said, a few weeks ago the I was notified that my online banking had been "moved" to a different part of the RBS website as part, it was said, of the transition to Santander, which makes me wonder if the "Williams & Glyns" portion of the business has already been ringfenced, and those customers who are due to be moved to Santander haven't experienced the problems?

I bet you reckon that Occam never had a razor either.

When I tried to trace a payment I was told don't know if it has been done or when it will be done if ever. Rock on Natwest the helpful bank.

TBH I don't reckon there's much to choose. I was with Yorkshire all my life until 2010. They really let me down (won't go into details) but suffice it to say we wrote twice to them to complain and were ignored. We only go a response when we switched banks.
Their current TV ad campaign is laughable but not funny.

Not if its a Tandem (as was) now HP NonStop server type of machine. You can run software decades old on that which was written when they were 16 bit machines classed as mini-computers. Most banks rely on these machines and the software. Lloyds, Barclays's, Nat West, HSBC, ING and various others all have big investments in this little known hardware.

Having spoken with their IT guys all last week (until they introduced Business Incident Managers to fend the calls) I'd say that if that was the case then no one told them!

"Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnd - always look on the bright side of life..."