24/7 access to bank account not a reality in the UK

During the 19 May 2006 - 18 June 2006 period, WatchMouse tested the websites of UK internet banks. Every 5 minutes, one of the test stations of WatchMouse retrieved the homepage of the site, without graphics, frames etc. This HTML page was expected to download within 8 seconds, without any errors. If that time was exceeded or if an error occurred, it was verified by one of the other test stations. If this station also established an error, it was counted as 'poor availability or not available'.

An uptime of 99.99% or higher is extremely desirable for high-profile companies and those that achieve high turnovers through their sites. Many companies stipulate an uptime of 99.9% as a minimum requirement in the Service Level Agreement with their IT department or provider. An uptime below 99% is usually regarded as unacceptable. In the table below these limits are indicated with colours.

You can also read the WatchMouse press release about this availability index on www.watchmouse.com

#	Website	Uptime percentage	Downtime per month
1.	Intelligent Finance	100.00	0 minutes
2.	Northern Rock	100.00	0 minutes
3.	Ulster Bank	100.00	0 minutes
4.	Bradford & Bingley	99.97	13 minutes
5.	ING Direct UK	99.97	13 minutes
6.	Sainsburys Bank	99.97	13 minutes
7.	NatWest	99.93	31 minutes
8.	Birmingham Midshires	99.90	45 minutes
9.	First Trust	99.90	45 minutes
10.	Bank of Scotland	99.86	1 hour, 2 minutes
11.	HSBC	99.86	1 hour, 2 minutes
12.	Coutts	99.83	1 hour, 16 minutes
13.	Alliance & Leicester	99.83	1 hour, 16 minutes
14.	Cahoot	99.76	1 hour, 47 minutes
15.	Egg	99.73	2 hours, 1 minute
16.	Loyds TSB	99.73	2 hours, 1 minute
17.	Nationwide Building Society	99.59	3 hours, 3 minutes
18.	Northern Bank	99.53	3 hours, 30 minutes
19.	Abbey	99.42	4 hours, 19 minutes
20.	Yorkshire Bank	98.98	7 hours, 35 minutes
21.	Tesco Finance	98.85	8 hours, 33 minutes
22.	Woolwich	98.68	9 hours, 49 minutes
23.	Clydesdale Bank	98.41	11 hours, 50 minutes
24.	Barclays	96.99	22 hours, 24 minutes
25.	Standard Chartered - Web bank	92.58	2 days, 7 hours, 12 minutes
26.	Citibank UK	91.38	2 days, 16 hours, 8 minutes

Do you also wish to receive a report on the performance of your company's website? Sign up for a free 30-day trial subscription without any further obligations. You will receive an availability report each week, and you can have your staff alerted by e-mail or SMS in the event of problems.

www.watchmouse.com/trial