Lloyds apologises after customers hit by online banking glitch

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/11/lloyds-apologises-after-customers-hit-by-online-banking-glitch

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Lloyds Banking Group has apologised to customers over a glitch on its online banking service.

The bank said on Monday it was aware of customers having intermittent problems with logging on to their online bank accounts. It has only affected Lloyds customers, rather than the group’s Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands, and has not affected app logins.

A Lloyds spokeswoman said: “We are currently aware that some customers may be experiencing intermittent issues when trying to access their online banking service this morning. We are working to resolve the issue as a matter of urgency and we are sorry for any inconvenience for our customers.”

Customers started complaining on social media on Sunday evening, with one user posting concerns about access to online banking services from 5pm. “Is your banking app/website down for maintenance? My internet is fine but I cannot access my bank on any device,” the user said.

@AskLloydsBank hi guys, is your banking app/website down for maintenance? My internet is fine but I cannot access my bank on any device.It does state on tour website that maintenance is taking place today, but between 12am and 6am.

According to the Lloyds website, its internet banking platform was undergoing maintenance between midnight and 6am on Sunday but a spokeswoman was not able to confirm whether there was any link to the later outage.

The problem comes less than a month after Lloyds Banking Group customers struggled with payments processing across all three of its brands. At least 400,000 transactions were believed to have been delayed as a result.

IT outages in the banking sector have come under increased scrutiny after a number of glitches across TSB, Barclays, RBS, HSBC and Visa affected key financial services for millions of customers last year.

The influential Treasury committee has since launched an inquiry into banking IT failures.

TSB’s IT meltdown was one of the most high-profile cases in the UK, costing the challenger bank £330m to date. It had been working to move accounts from an IT system inherited from the bank’s previous owner, Lloyds Banking Group, to one owned and created by its Spanish owner, Sabadell, back in April.

The botched migration locked millions of customers out of their accounts and caused prolonged disruption for account holders.