TSB has admitted that it may take another week to get its Internet and mobile banking systems functioning properly, as 50% of customers remain unable to reach their accounts online.
The beleaguered UK bank had reassured despairing customers just yesterday that all system were back up and running following a tuurbulent six days in the wake of a botched switch to a new banking platform provided by Spanish parent Banco Sabadell.
Under a grilling on the BBC's popular Radio 4 morning news programme, TSB chief Paul Pester, admitted that Sabadell had misinformed him when reporting a successful fix for the problems.
With customers up in arms over the meltdown, Pester has called in a team of fire-fighters from IBM to help address the problems.
“I will take direct control from 8 o’clock this morning for our platform, I’ve drafted in a team of global experts from IBM," he told the BBC. "They are reporting to me, directly to me and I will take control of the platform until it gets fixed. I am putting things right.”
In the interim, Pester is attempting to placate angry customers - who appear to be fleeing the bank in droves - by agreeing to waive overdraft fees and pay out compensation for consequential losses as result of the downtime.