I was making an application for a £15,000, 60 month loan via my Internet banking facility. I was offered a rate of 8.5% - as befits my stellar credit rating - and told the guys on the other end of the phone that I'd got an acceptable rate. They thanked me and we all went back to bed, happy in the knowledge that the deployment of the latest price change was okay. One of the largest financial institutions in the world needs to have a member of staff make a test over the Internet to see if the pricing engine for one of its product lines works properly. As in, doesn't fall over because it couldn't find a file, not as in, gave the right price. We already knew it did that. You would expect that the IT department of one the largest financial institutions in the world would have the ability to make tests on the live system, but no. In fact, nobody can make tests on the live system and they don't have a demonstrator in the office either. I asked about this and was given all the usual evasive answers: fraud, cost, fraud, security and fraud. In other words, there wasn't a good reason, someone in IT just didn't want to do it.
But then I one worked for the biggest name in telecoms and they had no systematic way of testing routes either. At least they could make test calls from their switch, but only one or two. I had to source a fax directory for them so they had test numbers for Kazakhstan and places like that. You can't always get what you want on the Internet.
And yet they will send mystery shoppers into their branches. Go figure.
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