Senior lawmaker urges UK banks to invest in IT to prevent failures

LONDON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Britain's banks need to dedicatefar greater resources towards securing their IT infrastructureand should have a designated board member overseeing the issue,a senior lawmaker said, following a string of high-profiletechnology failures.

Andrew Tyrie, chairman of parliament's Treasury Committee,also suggested that Andrew Bailey, the deputy governor of theBank of England who heads its banks supervisory arm, should betasked with ensuring the banks develop more resilience.

Britain's retail banks have been hit by a number oftechnology failures in recent years, causing inconvenience forhundreds of thousands of customers and prompting lawmakers tocall for more investment in financial technology.

"Every few months we have yet another IT failure at a majorbank," Tyrie said in a statement on Sunday. "These IT blundersand weaknesses are exposing millions of people to uncertainty,disruption and sometimes distress. Businesses suffer, too. Wecan't carry on like this."

Tyrie said someone, probably Bailey, the head of the BoE'sPrudential Regulation Authority supervisory arm, needed to take"a leadership role" over an issue that poses systemic risk tothe banking system.

"Currently, no one group seems to be directly responsiblefor developing a full understanding of the risks carried," Tyriesaid in a letter to Bailey dated Jan. 22 and published by thecommittee.

"A group of this type should now be formed with the primarytask of ensuring that the banks develop more robust resilienceto protect banking and payment systems. The head of the PRA maybe best suited for the leadership role."

HSBC suffered an online and mobile banking blackoutin January while in 2015 thousands of Britons failed to receivetheir wages when some HSBC business customers were blocked frommaking payments.

State-backed Royal Bank of Scotland has promised toinvest hundreds of millions of pounds in its computer systemsafter a series of high-profile glitches. Some customers atBarclays have also endured problems.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Dale Hudson)