This article is more than 1 year old

BACS Bank Holiday BALLS UP borks 275,000 payments

Employees left cashless. Planning to go away this weekend? Not anymore

Update III Potentially millions of employees expecting to be paid ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend have been left without their salaries due to a cockup with the Bankers' Automated Clearing Services (BACS) payment system.

The issue mainly appears to be affecting HSBC customers, which has blamed BACS.

An HSBC spokeswoman said: "We are aware that some customers have not received expected credits today. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and are working hard to resolve the issue as quickly as possible."

People took to micro-blabbing site Twitter to complain:

The Register asked HSBC if the 275,000 payments referred to organisations or individuals awaiting their salaries. A company mouthpiece said HSBC could not provide specific detail but vowed to provide an update once it knows more. ®

Update

A spokesman from BACS said: “Bacs is aware of an isolated issue affecting one of its member organisations. The Bacs system is operating as normal and we are currently working with our partners to help resolve this as quickly as possible.”

Second Update

HSBC has issued a statement:

There has been a fault in the information used to process some payments from HSBC business customers. Approximately 275,000 payments have been affected, including payments to customers of other banks.

HSBC apologises for the inconvenience this has caused. We are taking immediate steps to ensure the payments reach beneficiaries as quickly as possible. We will work with other banks to ensure that customers do not lose out as a result of today's problems.

Third Update

HSBC issued a further statement on Friday evening, in which it promised to get all payments processed within the next 24 hours.

It said:

HSBC apologises for the significant inconvenience caused to customers by today’s payments problems.

We are now processing the payments so that they reach the beneficiary accounts as quickly as possible. The majority of payments will be completed over the course of the afternoon and early evening, with any remaining payments completed overnight.

We are committed to ensuring that no one loses out as a result of today’s unacceptable problems. We will work with our customers and the other banks including providing compensation where appropriate.

Customers who do not receive the delayed payment by Saturday morning should speak with their bank in the first instance. They should also contact their bank if they have suffered any costs as a result of today’s problems.

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