TSB staff 'breaking down', warns branch manager

A TSB manager has warned that the bank's new online system has caused serious distress to staff as well as customers.

The branch manager, who asked not to be named, said the pressure was making staff break down.

He told the BBC: "Multiple staff members have been sent home physically and emotionally exhausted."

He added: "I am desperate for chief executive Paul Pester to recognise how awful it is in the branches."

The bank is in crisis after upgrading its computer systems at the weekend.

The massive undertaking of switching millions of customers from an old system to a new one has proved chaotic.

It left customers locked out of online accounts for several days, with many still reporting that they are unable to access services, even after the system was taken offline on Tuesday and is was supposedly back "up and running" on Wednesday morning.

The branch manager said he was worried that talking to the BBC could mean him losing his job.

But he said: "I'm concerned for my staff. They were in all over the weekend and have all been expected to work from 07:00 until 20:00.

"I have spoken with many other branch managers and there have been multiple staff members breaking down, being sent home and physically and emotionally exhausted.

"In my branch, every member of staff has been in tears and all saying this has been the worst working experience of their lives.

"It is heartbreaking for me as a manager seeing my amazing team break down one by one."

He reported that branch staff were trying to cope with a completely new system after the botched migration but "nothing is working".

"My concern is we have customer bills to pay such as credit cards, but we physically cannot process them, as the system either freezes or completely crashes, like it did yesterday for the whole afternoon."

He said that staff had been assured for more than a year how amazing the system would be, but "it's an absolute joke. Most of the error messages are in Spanish, which is great if you can speak Spanish!"

In a typical example on Tuesday, a regular customer, a local business owner, tried to deposit 45 cheques.

"In the past, that's taken 10 minutes to process. Yesterday we had to process each cheque individually, which meant it took 45 minutes. And then the system crashed, which meant we had to start the work all over again," said the branch manager.

"I would like to apologise to all the customers affected by this catastrophe and also that it took two days for [chief executive] Mr Pester to apologise to them. That is not good enough.

"Meanwhile the staff have had nothing, no apology, nothing."

A TSB spokesperson said: "Our Partners are working even harder than normal and for this we are truly grateful. Supporting our TSB Partners as they do everything they can to help our customers is a key priority.

"I want to say a big thank you to all of them for going the extra mile, working hard to fix the problems we have been experiencing as quickly as possible, and get back to the kind of service customers have come to expect from TSB."