TSB boss Paul Pester got it all wrong as MPs drew blood over bank's IT snafu

The embattled CEO said his bank is now working. Oh no it's not, said the members of the Treasury Committee he appeared before

TSB boss Paul Pester (Reuters)

If ever you needed an example of the gulf that has opened up between corporate executives and the wider public, TSB’s appearance before the Treasury Committee to discuss its recent – and apparently ongoing – IT foul up provided it.

Chief executive Paul Pester set out his stall from the outset: Terribly sorry that some people have had troubles, but migrating all our data onto a new system was a massive exercise and it went ok for most of our customers. The bank is now working and I have the information here to prove it!

Oh no it’s not, said MPs, who read out a succession of horror stories in the course of questioning him that had been emailed or tweeted to them by constituents.

One involved a customer that had died before their issue was resolved. Another was from a woman whose wedding was being wrecked by the stress of it all. Someone else had lost a car, and their deposit through being unable to make a payment.

People emailed and tweeted MPs with stories contradicting Mr Pester’s assertions as the hearing was in progress.

TSB apparently thinks that it is a digital business with a bank attached. Its top executive and directors (chairman Richard Meddings was there as was Miguel Montes who is chief operating officer for owner Sabadell) rather found them hoist with a digital petard on this occasion.

It got darkly comic at one point when Nicki Morgan, the chair, pointed out that a couple of members of the committee’s staff were TSB customers. They weren’t able to access their accounts online either.

Mr Pester could hardly have been more smarmy when he responded to this by thanking them for being customers. They probably won’t be for much longer.

And yet the hapless CEO had the gall to suggest that people should be switching to TSB rather than running a mile, while attempting to take a shot at the big four banks.

He was right in one respect. They do need more competition. Just not this sort of competition.

With his performance, Mr Pester presented himself not as a bold challenger shaking up the industry on the part of the punter but as a representative of all the industry’s worst failings.

Arrogance, complacency, and an apparent lack of any real empathy for how what TSB has been going through impacts people in every day life.

The latter is hardly surprising because, of course, Mesrs Pester, Meddings and Montes, as the members of a gilded and self congratulatory business elite, never have to experience those sort of problems.

Watching the display there were points when I was literally pinching myself as he was speaking. Did he really say that? Is the boss of TSB that blinkered? That’s what I was asking myself.

Such an hearing was never going to go well. They aren’t supposed to. But Mr Pester could have, after his stock apology, said something like this: “I’m hearing what you’re saying. Clearly we have more that needs to be done and I will make sure that it is done. In the meantime, please would you share with us the details of the people you’ve mentioned. I will handle their cases personally.”

Boom! There you go. But it was left to Mr Meddings to ask for the constituents' details.

At one point Mr Pester actually said that he “didn’t recognise” the picture they painted of the bank. Look, I have a spread sheet to show everything’s fine ’n’ dandy.

There was one particularly telling point when one of MPs raised a communication from a member of the team that tested the new IT system. He said they were encouraged not to report failures because that was seen as being "negative" about the project.

Mr Pester did rather come across as the sort of person who doesn’t want to hear negatives. No, he’d much rather have people shouting hey, woo, yeah, TSB is great, when it clearly isn’t.

That’s a dangerous trait in a banker.

Apparently he won’t get his bonus. At least not that part of it related to the IT migration.

After what has gone on he really shouldn't be in a job.