June 17, 2015 - Royal Bank of Scotland is scrambling to fix an IT glitch that caused over 600,000 transactions and hundreds of thousands of pounds in payments to go missing.

The problem, which hit all RBS, NatWest, Coutt's and Ulster Bank customers, has affected salary, benefit and bill payments and other debit and credit transactions that should have been placed in customer accounts during the overnight batch run.

RBS and Ulster Bank were hit with a £56 million fine by regulatory authorities last year over a computer malfunction in 2012 that locked customers out of accounts and knocked out payments processing systems.

At the time, RBS chief Ross McEwan admitted that the bank had failed to invest properly in its IT system for decades and promised to invest an extra 750 million pounds by the end of 2015 to enhance the security and resilience of its IT systems.

RBS says the cause of the current problems has been identified and it is working to restore missing payments to consumer accounts. However, it may take up to the end of the week to return all missing funds.