Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been slapped with a penalty of £56m by regulators for its June 2012 IT glitch that disabled million of customers to access their accounts for several weeks.

The lender has been fined £42m from Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for the IT failure, while Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) fined the bank £14m.

The penalty comes just a week after the bank was fined £400m for involvement in foreign exchange market manipulation.

The IT collapse hit RBS, NatWest, and Ulster Bank customers after a software upgrade went wrong affecting about 6.5 million customers across the UK.

RBS had to pay £125m in compensation and costs due to the disruption caused by the failure.

According to Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime at the FCA, "The problems arose due to failures at many levels within the RBS Group to identify and manage the risks which can flow from disruptive IT incidents and the result was that RBS customers were left exposed to these risks."

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Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of RBS said that the bank had since then invested hundreds of millions of pounds to enhance its computer systems to avoid a repeat of the IT crash.