NatWest has apologised to customers after its mobile app and online banking stopped working in the middle of Black Friday, one of the UK’s biggest shopping days.
The major outage meant huge numbers of users across the UK were unable to access online services on the last Friday of the month, payday for many workers.
Bank customers were still able to use card payments to buy items in the sales. But many struggled to keep tabs on how much money they had in their accounts, with some reporting the apparent disappearance of funds that had been transferred between accounts.
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NatWest said it is investigating the cause of the issue. A spokeswoman for the bank said: “We are aware that some NatWest customers are still experiencing intermittent issues accessing our mobile and online banking.
“We apologise to customers for the inconvenience and are working hard to fix the problem. There is no impact on debit cards, credit cards, ATMs, telephone and branch banking services – customers can continue to use these as normal.”
A message from the bank on Twitter said: “Our online banking, mobile app and bankline are currently facing intermittent problems.
“We’re working hard getting them back up and running smoothly for you. We’ll post an update when we have more information. And remember to contact us if you need urgent help.”
Last year, Barclaycard – which handles half of UK card payments – said that it was handling more than 1,000 payments per second over the morning of Black Friday.
Recent research from Which? the consumer magazine found the banking industry suffers around five IT failures each week typically, shutting millions of customers out of accounts and making payments.
Which? found that over the past year, major UK banks suffered 265 IT shutdowns between them that prevented customers from making payments.
Press Association contributed to this report
