Lloyds chief executive Charlie Nunn said the bank did not have any major issues related to the outage last Friday but added that the lender is ‘learning every day’
The boss of Loyds Bank boss has said that the recent global technology outage serves as a reminder of the need to “remain humble”, highlighting that cyber attacks and IT failures are becoming a significant concern for the bank.
The UK’s largest mortgage lender and high street bank emphasised its commitment to enhancing the resilience of its technology. A faulty update released by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike last Friday caused significant disruption worldwide, impacting IT systems.
This led to the cancellation of flights and trains, severely affected some healthcare systems, and crashed millions of computers running on Windows. Digital payment systems were also impacted, leaving numerous businesses unable to process digital payments.
Charlie Nunn, Lloyds’ chief executive, commented: “The event on Friday was an important one and an example of why we need to stay focused on resilience around tech. We have got 22 million digitally active customers. We, I think, have the biggest digital service in the UK outside social media.”
Mr Nunn confirmed that the bank did not experience any major issues related to last Friday’s outage. “But, this is one of those areas where you remain humble and you recognise you’re going to have to constantly be reinventing and investing in your own capabilities to be able to protect yourself, our customers and the UK economy going forward.”
The CEO emphasised that it was a “really important issue for us as a management team”, and that they were “learning every day and every week that we have attacks inside and outside the UK”. Lloyds has stated that it’s been heavily investing in its technology and workforce as the banking sector becomes more digital.
The bank noted that an increasing number of customers are utilising online and mobile banking for routine tasks like checking balances and paying bills, but also for more intricate financial needs such as purchasing insurance or making investments. Earlier this year, Lloyds announced it was slashing approximately 1,600 jobs across its branch network, marking a continued move away from traditional high street banking.
