•  Outage tracker claims banking issues started at just after 9am BST on Friday

Thousands of banking customers are being left without access to their funds as five of the big banks are suffering an outage. 

HSBC, Virgin Money, Lloyds Bank, Barclays and Nationwide all appear to be affected by issues hitting their apps today. 

According to Down Detector, more than 6,000 customers across the country were affected by issues from around 9am BST on Friday.

Jake Moore, tech expert and security advisor at ESET, said there could be a problem with computer servers that all five of the banks use

But he added that ‘a cyber attack can’t be completely ruled out’. 

It's one of Britain's most popular banks, but it appears that the Nationwide app has gone down on Friday, as well as services from four other banks

It’s one of Britain’s most popular banks, but it appears that the Nationwide app has gone down on Friday, as well as services from four other banks 

According to Down Detector, more than 6,000 customers across the country were affected by issues from around 9am BST on Friday

‘It looks similar to the snowflake attack on Ticketmaster and Santander this month,’ Moore told MailOnline. 

‘This isn’t the first time banks have seen outages and I’m sure it won’t be the last.’ 

Down Detector gets network status updates from various sources including social media and reports submitted to its website. 

It shows outage spikes above the usual baseline for all five of the banks. 

According to Down Detector’s data, most of the complaints seem to be coming from HSBC customers, suggesting HSBC is most badly affected. 

Of those who reported problems at HSCB, 69 per cent said they were having issues with mobile banking, according to Down Detector. 

Meanwhile, 18 per cent said they couldn’t log in using mobile and 13 per cent couldn’t log in online. 

Customers took to X (Twitter) to complain, with one asking ‘Anyone else having issues with HSBC mobile banking app today’. 

Some pointed out that it was pay day for them and they needed to access money to pay bills. 

HSBC posted: ‘We’re really sorry that some customers are having issues accessing personal online and mobile banking. 

Customers took to X (Twitter) to complain, with one asking ‘Anyone else having issues with HSBC mobile banking app today’

HSBC apologized for the outage, adding that its IT teams ‘are working hard’ to get services back to noimal 

Nationwide replied to a string of customers on X complaining that they had not received their wages into their accounts 

‘Our IT teams are working hard to get these services back to normal. You can still authorise online card purchases via SMS.’ 

Virgin Money and Nationwide also apologised to customers experiencing issues with digital banking services on Friday. 

Nationwide replied to a string of customers on X complaining that they had not received their wages into their accounts.

‘This has happened several times before’, one user complained, while another said it was “twice now in the past couple of months” that they had experienced a delay.

Nationwide said it was ‘aware there is a delay with some customers receiving their salary or pension payments today’. 

Virgin also posted: ‘We’re also aware of some intermittent issues with accessing online banking and our app.’ 

Lloyds was also apologizing to affected users on X, while Barclays told customers that staff are ‘doing everything they can’ to get their Faster Payment system back up and running.

What to do during an online banking and app outage 

Consumer rights advocate Which? has compiled the steps to follow when your can’t access your online banking service or app.

Such an issue usually results from an IT glitch or a maintenance update. 

– If you’re experiencing online banking or mobile app problems today, see if you can contact your bank to get things resolved.

– If you can, go to your local bank branch – especially if you urgently need to access your money.

– If you don’t have a local bank branch nearby or transport to get to it, try and call your bank and ask for its guidance on what to do.

– If the bank’s phone services are also down or phone lines are busy, try contacting your bank on social media to ask what to do – but don’t ever share your account details over social media. 

– For any reason if you suffered a financial loss because you weren’t able to access your funds, you may be entitled to compensation. 

Source: Which? 

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