BBC News reported yesterday that websites and mobile apps for Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, the three companies, part of Lloyds Banking group, had all become unavailable.
BBC News reported yesterday that websites and mobile apps for Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, the three companies, part of Lloyds Banking group, had all become unavailable.
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The banking industry’s ageing IT infrastructure has shown even more signs of break down, this time with Lloyds Banking Group being an example of the glitches which continue to have a large impact on customers every year.
Today, workers and businesses have come to rely on access to round-the-clock internet banking for online payments, but as it stands, our financial institutions are failing to maintain effective tech that can cope with modern day demand.
Moving forward, banks must strive to improve operations to ensure consumers are not inconvenienced by glitches or online outages. At the same time, it is equally important that financial institutions beef up security systems and improve their in-house IT to ensure that errors start to decrease, and less online banking customers are affected.
Once again, millions of online consumers have been let down by faulty internet banking services. In fact, IT failures have been commonplace for the financial services industry in recent times, and all signs point to the suggestion that some major banks have started this new year as they mean to go on, with inconsistent and untrustworthy online services.
Unsurprisingly, more and more consumers are looking towards a decentralised alternative to traditional banking, with cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin and Ethereum, currently offering the most suitable substitute. Whilst it is true that the cryptocurrency market is too volatile in its current state to act as a complete alternative to traditional banking, blockchain technology is hugely compelling and holds promise as a suitable substitute to current major financial services in the future.
Many experts, myself included, are expecting 2020 to be a big year for cryptocurrencies. Specifically, the bitcoin halving, whereby the reward for mining bitcoin is halved, is due for May this year and we could see fluctuations in the value of bitcoin unlike what we have seen before. Advice to interested investors is to buy now whilst the price is low and enjoy the benefits of a decentralised finance system before we begin to see the demand and price of cryptocurrency rise again.