Metro Bank enjoys an early Friday tipple and topples over

Mobile app down, website 'may be working slowly or unavailable'

"Exciting, revolutionary UK high street bank" Metro Bank is having an exciting, revolutionary lie-down today as its mobile app falls over and its website totters.

Problems first surfaced at around 11am today (UK time) as users of the outfit's mobile banking app began encountering issues.

Hi Bavi, we are currently experiencing issues with our Mobile app and are looking into this as a priority. Thank you for your patience. ^WT

— Metro Bank Help (@MetroBank_Help) March 29, 2019

By 12pm the bank's Twitter orifice admitted that the wannabe financial heavyweight (which currently has 1,620,000 accounts on its books, according to its 2018 (PDF) report) was "currently experiencing difficulty with its services".

We’re currently experiencing some technical issues with our services. We’re just sorting it out now and should have them back up and running shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience. Please check our service status page for updates: https://t.co/cxGyGbNjCm

— Metro Bank Help (@MetroBank_Help) March 29, 2019

At the time of writing, the bank's status page is a delight of red and yellow, with the mobile app flagged as "experiencing an issue and isn't working".

Maybe ditch the app and go for the web version?

Oops, the bad news bus has paid a visit to Personal, Business and Commercial online banking. All three "may be working slowly or unavailable".

No problem, though. Punters can just pick up the phone, right? Er, maybe not. For the contact centre, the message is: "Sorry, we're experiencing a high volume of calls, meaning it may take longer than expected to speak to someone."

With no ETA for resolution in sight, the harassed support staff have taken to directing customers to find their nearest branch instead.

Hi Zahid, thank you for your continued patience. We don't have an eta at present as our digital team is working on this as a priority. I will be responding to all tweets when it's back up and running. Until then are you able to visit a store? ^WT

— Metro Bank Help (@MetroBank_Help) March 29, 2019

El Reg called the bank to find out what was going on and were told "thanks for making me aware" after we read out the text shown on the bank's own status page.

Shortly after, we received the following statement: "We are currently investigating an issue affecting our mobile app and are working to resolve it as a matter of priority. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused and we'll provide further updates as soon as possible."

It has been a tough old time for Metro Bank of late, with shares tumbling despite the outfit recording a 140 per cent increase in underlying profit before tax in 2018. Year on year, the figure went from £20.8m to £50m.

The bank has also seen customer accounts jump from 403,000 to 1,620,000.

However, investors have been left rattled after the bank 'fessed up to a miscategorisation in loans earlier this year, which sent shares plunging.

Still, it's good to see upstarts like Metro Bank competing with the bigger High Street operations, even if today it is just in the TITSUP* stakes. ®

* Total Inability To Show Up Pounds