Stephen Hester, the chief executive of NatWest owner Royal Bank of Scotland, has apologised for technical hitches which left customers unable to pay bills or access their money.
Announcing that the bank would open 1200 branches nationwide today to clear a backlog of chaos caused by a problem with computer software, he said it had let down its customers.
Hundreds of customers have vented their frustration over the problems, with some finding payments had gone awry and others observing disappearing wages, or holidays and home purchases disrupted.
Account balances were not updated properly overnight, meaning credit and debit payments were not showing up as quickly as they should.
In a statement, Hester said: "I am very sorry for the difficulties people are experiencing.
"Our customers rely on us day in and day out to get things right, and on this occasion we have let them down. This should not have happened.
"Right now my top priority - is to fix these problems and put things right for our customers. This is taking time, but I want to reassure people that we are working around the clock to resolve these problems as quickly as we are able."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article