Last week’s systems failure problem at Royal Bank of Scotland has resulted in another bizarre situation when a man who had been jailed but granted bail was released only yesterday as it was unclear whether or not his bail payment had been made.

The man who had been jailed at Canterbury Crown Court, Kent, was not freed until the confirmation of the bail payment was received. A second case in London required the court to make allowances for the problem to release the defendant.

“Defendants are released on bail once confirmation of the receipt of bail is received. We are aware of only two cases where there was a banking issue. We were advised of one case by barristers on Monday. It related to a case last Friday and court staff used their discretion to ensure that the defendant was released as soon as possible”, HM Courts and Tribunals Service, said.

“In the second case the judge made a judicial decision last Friday to release the defendant given the circumstances”, it added.

RBS says a software change was to blame for disrupting millions of accounts. The glitch resulted in money neither being transferred into or out of accounts. Last week’s problem has been fixed but a huge backlog of transactions remains.

“It shouldn’t have happened and we are very sorry. There was a software change which didn’t go right and although that itself was put right quickly, there then was a big backlog of things that had to be reprocessed in sequence, which is why on Thursday and Friday customers experienced difficulty which we are well on the way to fixing”, Stephen Hester, CEO, Royal Bank of Scotland.

From Tuesday to Friday, 1,200 main NatWest and RBS town and city branches will extend opening hours to between 08:00 BST and 18:00 BST to assist customers.

Related:
Royal Bank of Scotland – Natwest systems failure fiasco continues to irk customers

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