Will HSBC's core banking system fail again?

Nearly a year ago, HSBC Bank USA, found that its core banking computer system had mysteriously crashed. It meant that it couldn't record withdrawals and deposits and it wrecked havoc on consumers and businesses nationwide, who couldn't access their money or be paid.

At the time the bank downplayed the issue, calling it an "infrastructure problem" or a "systems issue involving disks in our mainframe computer" that only affected "certain applications." In reality, it was much worse. This wasn't just one or two people that were affected, this was every HSBC customer in America, and it lasted for several days. After the event, HSBC refused to provide details of the extent of the problem, though the news coverage that did surface seemed to be concentrated to upstate New York.

The issue leads to question after question, especially, as HSBC is a company operating on a global scale, whether the problem could have affected customers outside of the US without their realisation. What's worse, the issue was never fully explained to those customers who were knowingly affected by the problem - the press remaining in the dark as well.

The concern now is, a year on, if this has happened once, what exactly is in place to stop from happening again? Some are beginning to wonder whether the core system crash has had an affect on HSBC losing money this year, given that pre-tax profits for the first half of 2009 were $5 billion (half the figure from 2008). Others, meanwhile, are beginning to lack faith in banks safe-guarding their money, with fears that incidences like these allow too easy access to consumers' money escalating.

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