Power cut to blame for Barclays ATM failure

Barclays Bank has blamed a power cut for the failure of its ATM (automated teller machine) network yesterday.

The problems stopped bank staff being able to give account holders information about the balance of their account or whether or not cheques have cleared. Problems continued until lunchtime today.

A spokeswoman for the UK high-street bank claimed a power failure at its Gloucester data centre was to blame. She added that she didn't know if Barclays used a back-up power supply for the centre, which serves the southern half of the country.

When asked at what time this power cut occurred, she said: "We are not prepared to go into any further detail."

The bank blamed another power cut for the failure in April. In August when the network went down for a second time the company refused to comment.

Sources at Barclays told Silicon.com at the time of the August failure that an IMS database management software upgrade from IBM caused the problem. Barclays refused to confirm this.

In an unrelated development the bank's chief executive Martin Taylor resigned unexpectedly today and the bank's share price collapsed. The bank issued a profit warning that it will not reach city expectations of £2.1 to £2.4bn profit. Share price fell 105p to 1385p - leading to speculation that it may a target for a takeover attempt.