Surviving digital banking outages

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I am Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union in 1962. And I'm Max Kennedy, the nephew of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. We explore what was a terrifying moment in history. The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. How close the world came to nuclear war. And what they had to do to pull it back from the brink. The bomb, Kennedy and Khrushchev. All episodes available now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

0:39Welcome to Tech Life on the BBC World Service, the programme about technology and how it touches our lives. I'm Graeme Fraser, and this week we are looking at banking and payment outages. It's great being able to keep track of your money and move it around electronically until you can't. Why do some online bank accounts, apps and payment systems occasionally fail? We speak to an expert. The first Saudi Arabian woman to run an international organisation speaks to us about her life in tech and her role in charge of the Digital Cooperation Organisation. And if you had to spend a long time on the Moon or Mars, what kind of base would you like to live in?

1:39We start this week with something we've been noticing at TechLife in recent months. It's the number of online banking and payment outages that seem to be happening. We wondered if it was becoming more common. It's difficult to find statistics, but then the BBC broadcast this radio bulletin in the UK last week. Data obtained by MPs has revealed that nine banks and building societies experienced tech outages that totaled more than 800 hours or 33 days over the past two years. The Treasury Committee has been investigating IT failures which prevented customers from accessing their accounts. So we started looking to see if it was happening elsewhere.

2:18And it is. Here are just two random recent examples from the United States as reported by CBS News. Well, new this morning, Wells Fargo customers listen up. The bank is experiencing outages right now that are impacting online banking services and the mobile app. One customer wrote on Twitter she couldn't use her funds and transfers or direct deposits were being declined. Breaking news, a widespread outage is affecting thousands of Bank of America customers. Many have reported trouble accessing their accounts. Those who can view their accounts say they see an alarming zero balance. It's not difficult to find more examples in the US, so we looked further afield.

2:57In Canada, Brazil, South Africa, Australia and Thailand, almost every country we looked at experienced banking and payment system outages. So what's the problem? I've been speaking to Chris Skinner, an expert in financial technology and author of books about digital banking. He's also the founder of the Financer.com website. Speaking to me from Poland, he's noticed an increase in outages too. They are becoming more frequent because most of the financial infrastructure is now shared. It's not operated by a single company. Historically, you might have said, okay, most banks relied on a few operators like Visa, Mastercard and Swift behind their operations.

3:42Today, they actually rely on many more operators because of the rise of fintech. and the open banking, open system structure that's emerged in the last decade. And part of that has seen a lot more IT outages. And do the outages, are they just affecting online personal banking? Or can any online payment system be affected by the outages, such as the mobile phone payment services that are becoming increasingly popular in Africa? Absolutely. I mean, every part of the operation can be affected by an IT outage because there's an interdependency between the bank that's the main provider as a commercial bank, investment bank or retail bank with their structure that's dependent on many other operators.

4:32And any part of the system can go down at any point. And then the question is tracking down who was at fault. And that's where we get into liability and dependency and questions around, remuneration and compensation. And what can cause online banking and payment outages? Anything. I mean, Visa had a big outage in Europe a few years ago, and they found that that was due to a hardware fault on one of their systems in the network. Normally, it's more likely to be that some update to software went down during the weekend. And I normally cite that these things happen at weekends because quite regularly the operators will update their systems on a Friday on the basis that Saturday, Sunday is quieter, and then systems go down.

5:28And that's what we've seen, particularly in the UK. But we see it everywhere. Even the best operators in Singapore, Australia, USA, we see it everywhere. And does it matter where in the world you live? Are you equally at risk no matter where you're doing your online banking or payments? I think you're equally at risk everywhere in that almost every company, particularly traditional financial institutions, believe that they now have to be fully up to speed with all the technology and digital requirements of their customers and to innovate and be at the forefront. And the more that they do that, the more that they partner with third-party companies, the more that they have exposures to potential downtimes due to the network that they're operating.

6:17And it's really down to the requirement of the leadership of a bank, if you're talking about a bank, to ensure they've done the due diligence on their partners. But even if they've done the due diligence, you can still see there's going to be problems every now and again. just like you and me, you probably every now and again find that your PC doesn't work, you need to reboot it. And that's what happens during these weekend upgrades to software and systems. And in the past, you could have a bank account, it would have a passbook, it would have a record of your transactions and your current balance.

6:53It was the proof that the bank had your money. But now it's a paperless world, it's possible to have multiple online accounts with absolutely no paper trail and no proof that the bank has your money. What fail-safes do the banks have to stop a computer from just losing your banking information and all your money? That kind of begs the question, Graham, whether you were alive when you had passbooks with balances and systems that actually gave you paper records. The paper record trail has gone. It's moved to everything being digital and it's a big question and it really relies on two parties yourself to keep track of the movements of funds and the organization that is doing the transfer of funds and it is getting more and more difficult i think what we see is and it's not just with banking and finance but every aspect of life that if you don't record the transaction when it's an important transaction, then you're a fool.

8:01Is there anything that we can do as customers to protect ourselves from the worst that our banking data just goes missing? Well, Bill, on what I just said, you've got to record all the important information at any time. And the only thing I would advise is that deal with an institution that's backed by a compensation scheme and make sure that the actual organisation has a licence, which means that they're authorised by the government to act on your behalf with your money, and therefore you can get your money back. If you don't have that licence and that guarantee and that insurance, then you're taking huge risks.

8:40And that is actually the issue with a lot of cryptocurrencies. And it can also be something as simple as just printing out some of your banking statements and other things so that you do have that paper trail. Could it be as simple as that? It could be as simple as that, but you don't need to print them out. You can print them to a document that you save in your digital store of your own on a cloud operator's drive. As long as you have the printed record in digital or physical form, then you've backed yourself up. And I think that's the thing I'd say to most individuals. Make sure you're backed up.

9:16A lot of people don't do that. They rely on the operator to provide them with records. and then because everything is paperless these days, if you don't have the record, you don't have the proof. So what do you think is the solution to fixing banking outages? Well, for the providers, the financial institutions, the main thing is to have a digital twin. In fact, an awful lot of these organisations do have a digital twin, which basically means that, yes, they have your primary account and they provide you with a service, but they have a backup service that reflects the main service. So if the main service goes down, they can flick a switch and move to the backup service.

9:58And in fact, some operators, and I'm familiar with a few, particularly the big global operators like Swift, have a third, so they're a triplet of their operation, or even a quad or a quin. You have backup after backup live in real time that you can switch to if there's any problems with the main service. And from the operator's side, therefore, it's to make sure that you have the infrastructure that's resilient. And for an individual, when that happens, obviously it's massively impactful if you can't pay your mortgage or your dinner that evening. And you need to make sure you have multiple providers of service.

10:42Do not have one bank account. Get two or three. and that way you're probably going to have your backup service when those things happen. That's Chris Skinner, an expert in financial technology.

11:05You're listening to Tech Life on the BBC World Service with me, Graham Fraser. If you'd like to share your experiences of online banking and payment outages, you're welcome to get in touch with us. Our details are coming up. Rebecca Paris lives in Lancaster in the UK. She emailed us after hearing an item on last week's show about how digital maps are kept up to date. Rebecca says she's made numerous edits to Google Maps by sending in suggestions, and most of them have been incorporated into Google Maps. Thanks for letting us know, Rebecca. We also issued an appeal for your help last week. Listener Colin Matthews in Australia emailed us to ask if there's a more energy-efficient way to toast bread than using a toaster.

11:47Anna Golden from the United States heard this an email to agree with Colin. She asks, why do no toasters toast bread right the first pop down? Why is there so much heat wasted? Perhaps the solution comes from Paul, a Tech Life listener who emailed us but sadly didn't leave his details. Paul says we should utilise a toasting fork, find a flame and make your toast. If you have any better ideas, we'd love to hear them. You can send us a voice note on WhatsApp. The number is plus 44 330 1230 320. Or you can email us techlife at bbc.co.uk is our address. Tell us who you are and where you live. Still to come, designing habitats to live life comfortably in the final frontier.

12:45Now we're going to talk about the Digital Cooperation Organisation. It launched in 2020 and it's an international body focusing on the digital economy. It has 16 member states from across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, including countries such as Kuwait, Bangladesh, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia, where it's based. The person running it is a Saudi woman. Her role is Secretary General and I've been speaking to her from her office in Riyadh. Here she is, telling me a little more about herself and her job. Well, I am Deema Al-Yahya, the founding secretary general of the Digital Cooperation Organization.

13:24So I have always been a tech enthusiast since I was very young. I remember when I was in the age of 12, when I had a Fortune magazine in my hand and it had a cover of Bill Gates. and it was the launch of Windows. I got so fascinated. He became my role model. And ever since, I have always knew what I wanted to pursue. Studied computer science, graduated as a software engineer. The thing is, when I started my career two decades ago, it was very complex and very hard in Saudi Arabia to navigate not only in a very complex sector like technology, but also as a woman, where this sector was mostly male dominant.

14:20But I had that passion, and I was in love with the technology and capability of how is it a tool that can enable increasing the quality of life and productivity and so on and making our lives better. So I insisted to continue in the sector and not drift away. So I was blessed by giving the opportunity to lead the first digital economy, intergovernmental organization, DCO. Is it true that you're the first Saudi woman to lead an international organization? Oh, yeah, that is true. Yes. But I don't think the first is an accomplishment. But the achievement that we have achieved so far is something to be proud and fills me with pride and joy to see our region, sorry, an international organization that is out of the region.

15:17And of course, led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Now, the tech world has a gender imbalance with far more men more than women in the workforce and leadership positions in particular. So how do you feel that you've managed to succeed in Saudi Arabia? How have you taken those steps forward? Well, determination and passion. You know, when you're passionate about something and about a mission that you want to drive, you will overcome any obstacles. Was it an easy journey? No, it wasn't. It was especially two decades ago. Not that women all over the world are not facing this challenge, but I would add Saudi Arabia as well.

16:02So it was complex. It's very much challenging to find your space, to be heard, to grow and reach your full potential. Just in the simplest way possible, if you could explain to us a little about what the Digital Cooperation Organisation is. Well, the Digital Cooperation Organisation is the first and only intergovernmental organisation that focuses on digital economy. It was established in the intention of its member states wanting to diversify their economies, where like-minded nations came together with the belief that for them to bet on digital economy, to diversify their economies, they need to work together.

16:53They need to share best practices. They need to capitalize on their competitive advantages together to harness the opportunities of growth in the digital economy. And what would you say the digital economy is? How do you grow it? In very simple terms, it is based on the activities and transformation of data on the internet, either from a trade perspective, either from education, data information when it comes to healthcare. So that transition of data on the internet is what creates this new economy. And what progress has been made so far with the organization? So if we look at digital economy right now, last year alone, it was 16 % of the overall GDP globally.

17:46But if we look at that 16%, who is really affecting that 16 %? And who is really harnessing that opportunity of that growth in terms of that global GDP? We're going to see that they are only a handful of countries, where there are a lot of other countries, especially when it comes to emerging economies, that are still left behind. And this gives us an indication of, okay, well, then how can we balance that digital economy growth going forward? And this is where we're focusing mostly on what does maturity look like in digital economy? And how can we make sure that our member countries bridge the gap for them to become mature?

18:37And what role does AI play in all of this? Oh, AI is now a huge enabler. I think the challenge that we are trying to tackle right now when it comes to AI is as positive as it is. And as much as we are very keen on looking at adoption of AI, especially in government services and serving citizens, we are tackling the challenge of the infrastructure. Now, if we look at AI right now, because of the, I would say, the global competition right now on who is leading AI, the more competition, the more the technology will accelerate in growth and the more the innovation will accelerate. So the innovation is much faster than the policymaking as of now.

19:38My thanks to Dima Al-Yahir, Secretary-General of the Digital Cooperation Organisation.

19:58A few weeks ago in TechLife, we spoke to a company called Deep about the technological challenges of building bases for humans so they can work and live in Earth's oceans for long periods of time. Since then, we've found out about another company which is also designing habitats for humans underwater. But they're spending most of their time looking up at the stars, designing and building settlements for use in space. And some of their tech is already up there. They're called Saga Space Architects. They're based in Copenhagen in Denmark and the co-founder is Sebastian Aristoteles. I asked Sebastian what was different about his designs for living on the moon and Mars compared to those from NASA and SpaceX.

20:43Well, we are actually designing and building exactly what they need to go to the moon and Mars. I guess 50 years ago, you know, we landed on the moon, then we haven't been back. And then in the last decade, NASA and ESA have been focused on getting astronauts to the moon as a stepping stone to bring them to Mars. and there's a lot of things that we need and one of those things is habitation. What is a good home on the moon and what is a good home on Mars? And that's what we are trying to answer with our projects. And tell me, you're not just designing stuff for space, you're actually making it now.

21:21So tell us about some of the tech that you've already sent up to space. We've built around five different training habitats here on Earth and I've stayed in some of them myself in extreme environments like the Arctic. And we do that to learn unknown unknowns. That's a big thing. What is it that we don't know that we don't know? And one of those things happened to be lighting. So when I spent close to 100 days in the Arctic, close to the North Pole in one of our habitats, we didn't see sunlight for the last 30 days of the mission. That reminded me that the astronauts on the International Space Station, they don't see a natural sunrise and sunset either, because they are flying around Earth in orbit 16 times a day.

22:10So they see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets. And we know that light and especially sunlight is one of the most important things for stimulating a healthy sleep rhythm. So we said, OK, why don't we come up with a solution to bring sunlight and sunrise and sunset into the sleeping caverns of the astronauts. And that's what we did. And currently we have a lighting system in the International Space Station or on orbit and used by a Danish astronaut and an American astronaut. And now we are looking to test it on a third subject. So you mentioned the Arctic there. You built and tested your moon habitat in that challenging environment.

22:52Tell me a little more about that experience. me and my co-founder we designed an unfolding habitat called lunark and you know we didn't know that much about the arctic i've never been to the active before but it's the most realistic place on earth to test moon things you have the isolation you have the cold you have the monotone landscape and so we send it a thousand kilometers north of the arctic circle me and my co-founder carl we We went there for 100 days, lived inside the habitat for two months, four and a half square meters. That's 45 square feet approximately. So it's tiny. It's very small.

23:35And we were offline for that entire period and came back alive a bit thinner. I think I lost more than 10 % of my body weight in those 100 days. And I had a big beard, but so much wiser. I think everything since then, that's about four or five years ago. It was a great, great education on how to build space architecture. You're selling the space habitat to the European Space Agency. What will that be used for? Right now, we are delivering a training habitat to the European Space Agency that will be used down in EAC, the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, where they train all the European astronauts.

24:18And there they have a lot of facilities. It's like a big pool where they can put the astronauts down and train a neutral buoyancy. But now they also have a big empty hall full of fake moon dust, simulated moon dust. And that's maybe one of the most advanced facilities in the world for lunar surface training. And they happen to need a place to live while they train in that simulator. So they were looking for a training habitat. And that's exactly what we do. So we won the tender for designing and building a training habitat, simulating the conditions on the moon where the astronauts are going to live for around seven days at a time.

25:05And for me, you know, I spent two months on four and a half square meters, and this habitat is 28 square meters for four people. So I think it's incredibly luxurious. It's like the most advanced autocamper you've ever seen. And is the idea that you would build the habitat and then put it on a rocket that then gets launched into space, or is it possible to print the 3D habitat on another planet? Both things are realistic and we are working towards both goals. In the more medium to long-term future, we will see habitats being printed on the moon. First, it will be infrastructure like blast shields, road infrastructure, primitive geometries like that.

25:49Then we will see more complex geometries like habitat shielding, radiation protection, protection from micrometeorites, things like that. And then eventually we will see actually detailed parts of habitats being 3D printed. And that's like the longer future. The near future, everything will be prefab, so prefabricated elements built here on Earth in protected workshops and then launched on a rocket to the moon. fascinating stuff that's Sebastian Aristoteles co-founder of Saga Space Architects talking to me from Copenhagen

26:30sadly we've reached the end of today's show if you liked our interview about space habitats or want to comment on anything in today's Tech Life you can get in touch with us the email address techlife at bbc.co.uk or whatsapp us on plus 44 330 1230 320. Today's show was produced by Tom Quinn, edited by Monica Soriano, and presented by me, Graham Fraser.

27:10I am Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union in 1962. And I'm Max Kennedy, the nephew of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. We explore what was a terrifying moment in history. The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. How close the world came to nuclear war. And what they had to do to pull it back from the brink. The bomb, Kennedy and Khrushchev. All episodes available now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.