Millions of people were left unable to access their finances on payday after app issues swept through Britain’s banking system.
Nationwide, First Direct, Lloyds and Halifax all confirmed problems with their online banking systems on Friday, leaving many customers without access to funds on payday.
It is the second month in a row that major banks have been hit by IT issues around payday, with experts saying online banking systems often struggle with the high rate of activity as wages and bills go in and out of accounts at the end of each month.
In messages posted online, the banks said they were working to return their systems to normal.
Nationwide said in a message on its website “some incoming and outgoing payments are delayed at the moment”, but that “everything else is working normally”.
A spokesman said the lender had identified the issue caused the delays and said direct debits and standing orders were working as normal.
However, payments were in a queue and would arrive soon, adding customers do not need to do anything.
First Direct said on its website that both its mobile and online banking services were “experiencing issues with payments”.
Shortly afterwards, Lloyds and Halifax also confirmed issues with customers being unable to log in to online banking and their respective mobile banking apps.
A Lloyds spokesman said: “We know some customers are having issues with internet banking and our apps. We’re sorry about this and we’re working to have it back to normal soon.”
According to service status website DownDetector, users were reporting issues with a number of banks on Friday morning, with customers struggling to get online or move funds.
TSB also said it was having “intermittent” issues with online and mobile banking.
A spokesman for TSB said: “We’re aware of industry-wide issues this morning, and that some of our customers are unable to log into our mobile app, and internet banking. We apologise for this and are working hard to resolve it.”
At the end of last month and in early February, Barclays, Lloyds Bank and Halifax were all hit by service outages which left customers unable to access funds on or just after payday.
