Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland customers left unable to make online payments
Lloyds Bank customers were hit by payment problems. Photo: Dinendra Haria/REX/Shutterstock
Customers of three major UK banks have been left unable to make online payments after their websites were hit by serious technical problems.
Llloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland all posted the same apology to customers on social media over the issue, promising they would not be left “out of pocket.”
Thousands of people are likely to be affected by the problem, with many hitting out at their banks online in frustration at not being able to do important transfers. Several business owners asked how they were supposed to pay their staff, and some customers threatened to switch banks.
#lloydsbank @asklloydsbank I've got 76 employees to pay how much longer ???
— Claudine Reid MBE (@ClaudineReid1) January 18, 2019
@AskLloydsBank what’s going on with banking transfers? My mother is trying to transfer money from her Lloyds bank account into my Lloyds bank account, it says it’s successful yet doesn’t leave her acc or goes into mine
— looby2k (@looby2k) January 18, 2019
Is anyone experiencing problems with Lloyd’s bank today?
I’m really not happy, any bank recommendations ? #lloydsbank #tecnicalproblems #moneydisappearingfrommyaccount #nooneknowswhattheissueis— Simona Martini (@SimonaMartini7) January 18, 2019
The three banks wrote on Twitter shortly after midday: “We are aware that some customers are experiencing problems with making faster payments.
“We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We would like to assure customers they will not be out of pocket as a result of this issue, and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
It is far from the first time banks have suffered significant problems with their online services in recent years, with some incidents causing misery for customers and sparking widespread anger.
READ MORE: UK banks ready for Armageddon-style meltdown and Brexit fallout
The Royal Bank of Scotland was hit by an outage in September last year, shortly after similar outages at Barclays, the Co-operative Bank and Cashplus.
A group of MPs on the Treasury select committee condemned banks at the time for allowing such problems to occur when many high street banks are closing branches to save money.
“High street banks justify the closure of their branch networks on the basis that they are providing a seamless online and mobile phone banking service. These justifications carry little weight if their banking apps and websites cannot be relied upon,” committee chair Nicky Morgan warned the industry in September.
Extra reporting by Tom Belger.