Banks’ customers complain of money ‘vanishing’ online

BANKING CUSTOMERS with NatWest, RBS, Lloyds and Halifax struggled with online banking glitches yesterday with customers complaining cash appeared to have “disappeared into thin air” as attempts were made to transfer money.

The problems came on what was payday for many people, being the last Friday of the month, and a day when many were checking their finances as they made preparations for the bank holiday.

RBS, which includes NatWest in its brands, said some customers had experienced problems with its mobile banking app and with online banking running slowly. In some cases, customers had experienced issues with transfers being delayed, it said.

An RBS spokesman added: “Our mobile apps and online banking are now running as normal and delayed payments are starting to credit customer accounts. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.”

No NatWest or RBS customers will be left out of pocket as a result of the issue and any credits should appear in people’s accounts by the end of Friday, the bank stressed.

Some person-to-person payments were affected, but not salaries, according to the bank. The issues with payments had affected some NatWest customers, while online and mobile banking issues had affected both NatWest and RBS customers.

One Twitter user wrote: “When you transfer money from a #Natwest account to another and it just disappears into thin air.”

Statements posted on Halifax and sister bank Lloyds Bank’s Twitter accounts said they were aware some customers were experiencing problems accessing internet banking and were working to resolve them as quickly as possible. The statements said the issues were “intermittent”.

A Lloyds Banking Group spokeswoman said: “We are aware that some of our customers are experiencing issues logging on to internet banking across all Lloyds Banking Group brands. We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”