Former TSB chief information officer fined £81,000 over IT meltdown in 2018
UK regulators have imposed an £81,000 fine on a former TSB information officer over the bank’s IT meltdown in 2018 that left millions of customers locked out of their accounts.
The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said Carlos Abarca, who was TSB’s chief information officer at the time of the meltdown, “failed to take reasonable steps” to ensure that an outsourcing firm owned by TSB’s parent company was ready to carry out the IT migration of customers en masse.
The fine against Abarca comes months after the bank itself was fined £48m in December for “widespread and serious” failings related to the debacle, which arose during its separation from its former parent company, Lloyds Banking Group.
Abarca is the only TSB executive so far to be held personally accountable by regulators for the IT migration failure.
The Bank of England declined to comment when asked whether any investigations into other bosses were taking place. It could leave the door open for further fines against directors and executives who were working at TSB at the time of the meltdown.
Paul Pester was forced to resign as TSB’s chief executive within months of the incident, after intense criticism from regulators and MPs.
The fine for Abarca is one of the few issued under the UK regulatory senior managers’ regime, which aims to hold bosses personally accountable when things go wrong.
Abarca had been responsible for making sure TSB was following the PRA’s outsourcing rules, and had been managing the bank’s relationship with its main third-party supplier for its IT migration programme.
The regulator said Abarca gave assurances to the board, telling them the supplier was ready for the migration in early 2018, but did this before he had received adequate
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