Customers of online banking hit by IT blackout

BRITAIN’S biggest building society Nationwide suffered an IT blackout that left thousands of customers unable to use its full services.

The IT failure hit the lender’s mobile and online banking for two hours between 6.30am and 8.30am yesterday and left customers unable to log on to these services.

The firm, which runs 5.7 million accounts, said the issue has now been fixed and it apologised for any inconvenience caused to its customers.

Nationwide said: “We are aware of an issue that meant some customers were unable to access the internet and mobile banks for a short period this morning. We have resolved the issue and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

It added that throughout this period, customers could use their cards to pay for goods and access their accounts at automated cash points.

A number of banks and financial service companies have been caught up in IT blackouts in recent years as their computer systems become increasingly complex.

Last November, the Royal Bank of Scotland was hit with a £56 million fine from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) after a computer failure in 2012 saw as many as 6.5 million customers unable to make payments for up to three weeks. The outage hit customers at NatWest and Ulster Bank, which RBS also owns.

Last March, the FCA launched a report into the amount of time resources boards at financial services firms devote to the resilience of their IT systems. The FCA is expected to issue its updated guidance on IT resilience to financial services firms later this year.