British bank shuts website until April 2012

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/halifax_shuts_site_for_a_year/

by sunsai • 15 years ago

35 13 15 years ago

theregister.co.uk

tomjen3• 15 years ago

This is what happens when you bail out companies: you end up with a bunch of dynosaurs stumbling like the savages they are.

JonnieCache2• 15 years ago

"Dynosaurs" would be fine, that would imply dynamism, or the ability to change. Unfortunately what we actually have are "Dinosaurs" where "dino" means "terrible".

phlux• 15 years ago

Maybe Dynasaurs means "To change over the course of Eons"

mikealeo• 15 years ago

Scottish banks were bailed out? I'm not sure if you think this is an American bank, or I just don't know enough about Scotland's economics.

JonnieCache2• 15 years ago

Scotland is part of the united kingdom. The royal bank of scotland is a UK bank and it was bailed out by the UK government.

The UK is a country comprised of four countries. Don't worry, the people that live here don't understand it either.

Great Britain is simply a geographical term applied to the actual archipelago itself.

The economic relationship between scotland and the rest of the country, particularly the government in london is a vexed question that is seen as being badly in need of a solution, but it has been pushed aside in the current economic situation.

It's basically down to the fact that while scotland has partial legislative autonomy, it is unable to raise its own tax revenues independently, but it is much deeper and more complicated than this. See https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/West_Lothian_...

wewyor• 15 years ago

Yes, and the bank doing the website renovations (HBOS) is one of the ones that was bailed out.

jrockway• 15 years ago

To be fair, there are a few more regulations on how a bank's website works compared to your average node.js mashup. This affects the timeline and usability.

melvinram• 15 years ago

Everyone's thinking it so I'll say it: WTF?!

If Wells Fargo turned off online banking for 1 month, I'd switch banks.

I wonder if they are handling everything in-house or have hired external consultants/company to build out this wonderful new site & mobile app that will take a full year.

Now if their current system had a major exploit and the only way to fix it is to rewrite the whole thing, I guess they have no choice. At the very least they should have put together a temporary "read only" type of site that involve less/no risk on their part and provide their call centers a bit of relief.

Ballsy move (and not in a good way.)

nudge• 15 years ago

Just to clarify, it's not entirely down. It's just investments. I use this bank for checking and credit card and they're both fine.

kapitalx• 15 years ago

Sure, but the point continues to stand. Why not continue to provide the current site until the new one is complete and then do a switch. Unless, as melvinram mentioned, somehow there is some costly exploit that cannot be fixed unless everything is redone and its dangerous to keep the site up until its rewritten.

bittermang• 15 years ago

Frankly, if their intentions are to build a site which is more secure, and there was a gaping security flaw with the existing site, then it is good news that it won't be available for a year.

flyt• 15 years ago

Palo Alto's utility company did the same thing while they rebuilt their bill pay site. Really frustrating as a user, especially for a city at the heart of the Valley.

British bank shuts website until April 2012

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