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“Rushed and inadequate” testing said to have contributed to TSB tech crisis

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As TSB continues to resolve the technical problems caused by a failed system upgrade, two contractors who worked on the project have told Reuters news agency that “rushed and inadequate testing” contributed to the failure of the project. TSB’s attempt to upgrade systems for its 1.9 million active online and mobile customers on April 21 failed, leaving hundreds of thousands unable to access their accounts. The bank tried to switch 5 million customers and 1.3 billion records to software run by its Spanish parent Sabadell from a system operated by Lloyds Banking Group, which sold TSB three years ago. Two IT contractors who managed employees involved in the migration up until December 2017 told Reuters that testing of the different systems was not as thorough as it could have been because TSB rushed to meet the self-imposed deadline of November 2017, later extended to April 2018. The news agency said that TSB rejected that view, telling them that testing was “extensive”. One source said: “There wasn’t time to test everything, digital and mobile payment testing weren’t properly scoped, so it wasn’t a surprise to me when it went live last week and those parts didn’t work.” Another source, a software tester, said that in some cases tests were poorly designed or rushed in order to meet the initial project launch date. They also cited a lack of communication between IT and the business about who was managing the testing. TSB has apologised to customers and has engaged software giant IBM to fix the software issues.