Platform Transact has apologised to users after a firewall upgrade created technical problems and locked out users last month, blocking all external access for several hours.
In an update to users this week, the company apologised for the issues which occurred after a planned firewall upgrade, “triggered an automated control from our data centre provider, which blocked all external access.”
Transact said the issue meant that advisers and clients could not access Transact Online. Phone lines were also down and email was disrupted.
The company, known for its reliability, said it was the “most significant outage” it had experienced in recent years and impacted its service.
In a message to users in its latest newsletter Tom Dunbar, Transact CEO, said: “I have spoken with many advisers and we are committed to learning from our mistakes. We have already identified actions to prevent a recurrence and to improve communication should a similar issue arise.”
Separately, in comments on AI, Mr Dunbar said that AI offered great potential and could be “transformational” but must be implemented cautiously.
He said: “Clearly the technology will be transformational. But I also observe my CEO peers citing AI use cases and efficiencies which I am convinced don’t tell the full story.
“At Transact we must be curious and embrace AI but we mustn’t panic and rush into investments which ultimately increase risk and cost in our business. The same applies to financial advisers. In my conversations with advisers, it’s apparent there are benefits from being curious but also being confident in your ability to identify appropriate AI use cases in your business. Just because some firms have implemented agentic processes (systems that can act autonomously) doesn’t mean you should.”
He also announced a number of improvements to Transact Online including:
• Client bank account details can now be added using the new Add Bank Account feature
• Multiple transfers into one wrapper - multiple transfers from the same provider can be added into a single Transact wrapper
• The launch of Transact’s new Flexible Reversionary Trust
• A new look website