HSBC customers left without cash

Computer glitch leaves thousands waiting for their salaries:

HSBC was last night struggling to get money to customers hit by a failure of its payments and online systems.

The payments system was still down more than 12 hours after the bank first admitted that hundreds of thousands of money transfers from businesses had failed to reach their intended re- cipients. Businesses who bank with HSBC tried to send payments through the BACS system, including pay cheques to employees, but found the money was not being delivered.

Around 275,000 payments failed, leaving staff without money ahead of the bank holiday weekend, after HSBC apparently forwarded the “wrong information” into the BACS system, which is owned jointly by the biggest banks.

The bank’s business website also crashed later in the day.

“HSBC apologises for the significant inconvenience caused to customers by today’s payments problems. We are now processing the payments so that they reach the beneficiary accounts as quickly as possible,” the bank said.

“The majority of payments will be completed over the course of the afternoon and early evening, with any remaining payments completed overnight. We are committed to ensuring that no one loses out as a result of today’s unacceptable problems. We will work with our customers and the other banks including providing compensation where appropriate.

“Customers who do not receive the delayed payment by Saturday morning should speak with their bank in the first instance. They should also contact their bank if they have suffered any costs as a result of today’s problems.”

Later, the bank added: “Over 99pc of payments that were delayed today have now been processed, with the remaining to be credited overnight.”

The failures followed a series of payments system crashes at Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest, with a particularly damaging case in 2012 leading to a £56m fine last year.

Lloyds Banking Group also had problems with its faster payments system in 2013, while in 2014 computer problems at the Bank of England led to problems in the CHAPS payments system.