That is the uncomfortable question behind a recent case where a bank’s terms and systems drifted apart.
A major bank changed terms for certain accounts in 2014 so interest would be calculated daily. The system kept calculating it using the lowest monthly balance.
That mismatch sat there for nine years, until a customer query exposed it.
The system was not “broken” in the usual sense. It did exactly what it had been built to do.
The failure was the gap between:
- the terms customers signed
- the rules coded into the platform
- the calculations appearing on statements
- the evidence the business could produce
That gap will not always show up in a defect report.
It is not just a banking problem. Any business with customer terms, product rules, fees, entitlements, exclusions, renewals or claims logic has the same exposure.
Your terms and conditions are system requirements that need to be testable, auditable and reconciled against what the platform actually does.
Could you evidence today that your systems match the terms your customers agreed to? If not, that is exactly the kind of review worth doing before a customer, auditor or regulator finds it.
