In one of the most amazing turnarounds in the history of bank computing, a major bank could be about to convert from IBM Corp mainframes to those of one of the fading also-rans in the proprietary mainframe business. Over the past 30 years, companies like Sperry Corp, Burroughs Corp and NCR Corp have watched helpless as their retail banking customers around the world converted their biggest application, running current or cheque accounts, to IBM mainframes, but TSB Group Plc has been quietly creating the most advanced current account system in the UK on Unisys Corp 2200 series mainframes. It is the only major bank in the UK that updates its current accounts in real time rather than in batch (years ago, Lloyds Bank Plc told us it would like to be able to do just that, but the task to rewrite the software would be enormous and the mainframes available were not nearly big enough). And now that Lloyds and the TSB are engaged to be married, Lloyds says that it will be deciding in about a month’s time whether to replace its IBM mainframes running the current accounts with 2200s running software developed by the TSB, which also handles its telephone banking.
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