Metro apologises for delays following IT ‘incident’

On 29 January 2024, mortgage and asset lender Balmain first detected an “IT security issue” that was affecting access to some of its platforms.

While details have not been released regarding the specifics of the issue, the company said earlier this month that customer investments and funds were “safe and unaffected”, the issue took the website offline for a period of weeks and has impacted Metro’s broker portals and ability to process new loans.

In a statement earlier this month, Balmain confirmed that “some of Metro Finance’s systems”, which it hosts, had been impacted and are currently disrupted as a result.

“Metro Finance are working to restore their services with all urgency and understand they are separately speaking with their introducers to keep them updated as we continue to bring their systems online,” the statement read.

However, while Metro took “immediate steps to implement additional security measures and isolate [its] systems” after the IT security issue, it is still not able to operate at full capacity.

For example, it is not yet able to process new loans and is still working on requests for payouts, statements, settlements, and the assessing of loans submitted prior to the incident.

Speaking to The Adviser, a Metro spokesperson said that the lender had brought forward plans to establish a new independent IT environment – hosted by Microsoft Azure – and had completed a number of actions to “bolster performance and the protection of customer and broker data” within this new Azure set-up.

However, they added that this effort, which includes the transition of all applications and data to the new cloud environment hosted on Azure, had “regrettably disrupted some key services”.

When asked by The Adviser what brokers should be doing while the system is down – and how long it will be before they are able to take loan applications again – the spokesperson said: “We have been in constant communication with our broker and salary packager network, keeping them informed of each phase as we get back up and running to full capacity.

“Metro will be sharing details of this new system and its benefits directly to our partners in the coming days.

“We understand that the disruption to our systems has been problematic for our broker and salary packager network, and we are deeply sorry that this has happened.

“The patience and support we have received as we respond to this situation has been both generous and overwhelming, and we are exceptionally grateful.”

[Related: Replacing human intervention would be a ‘demise’: Metro]