Payday from hell as several British banks report major outages

Many can't access online banking although customers can keep tapping away in shops

The UK is full of unhappy workers that are unable to manage their payday cash amid online service outages at a host of major banks.

Downdetector indicates trouble at Lloyds Bank, Halifax, TSB, Nationwide, First Direct, Bank of Scotland, and Barclays, although the latter's woes appear to have been resolved since the surge of complaints earlier today. 

The same can't be said for the others, however, which all continue to report glitches via their service status pages.

Across the board, the outages seem to be related to web and mobile banking, with the root cause unclear.

Customers trying to open their banking apps are greeted with messages warning of the ongoing outages.

"We know some of our customers are having issues logging on to internet and mobile banking," reads the Lloyds Bank mobile app at the login screen.

"We're sorry for this and we're working to have everything back to normal."

The same message, worded verbatim, appears across the service pages of nearly all the other affected banks.

Nationwide's service page warns that payments made to and from customer accounts are delayed, but warned users not to re-execute any transactions. 

"If you've sent money already or are waiting for money to arrive you don't need to do anything, it's in a queue and will arrive ASAP," its website reads.

"You can still send money, but this won't go through straight away. Direct Debits and standing orders are working normally."

Unlike the other banks whose customers can't access their online banking platforms, those who use Nationwide can still access their accounts and move money around seamlessly, provided the money is going into other Nationwide accounts under their control.

All affected customers are still able to use their debit and credit cards at ATMs and in shops.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK's finance regulator, published a post-CrowdStrike report in October, saying it noticed an upward trend of third-party related outages hitting UK banks since the beginning of 2023.

New rules (PS21/3 Building operational resilience) set to take effect in March will mean UK banks must be able to continue delivering important business services in severe but plausible scenarios, like the CrowdStrike calamity.

Today's outage comes weeks after Barclays suffered a weekend-long service wobble, that reportedly left at least one customer homeless as a result. ®