IT meltdown at Barclays as customers are locked out of bank accounts
MILLIONS of Barclays customers were locked out of their accounts yesterday when the bank’s online, mobile and telephone systems crashed.
Users complained they were unable to log in for most of the day, leaving them unable to pay bills or transfer money.
They also faced problems in branches, where some systems were down and cash machines allowing people to withdraw larger amounts of money were not working.
The latest fiasco to hit the banking industry comes after TSB’s computer system meltdown earlier this year left customers facing disruption for weeks.
In June millions were unable to pay for shopping or withdraw cash after a sudden failure of the Visa card payment system.
Barclays’ problems started at 10.45am yesterday, when customers could not get into online bank accounts due to ‘ technical problems’. When they tried to log in they were greeted with a message: ‘Sorry – Barclays Online Banking is currently unavailable.’
The bank’s telephone banking then stopped working at around midday.
Just before 3pm the bank announced that the problems were resolved, only for the system to go down again around five minutes later.
At this point Barclays revealed that its mobile banking app was also not working.
The bank said customers were able to use their debit and credit cards as normal and that direct debits were not affected, but some customers reported problems receiving payments.
Barclays has 24 million customers – including businesses and credit card customers, who were not affected yesterday.
Barclays apologised on its Twitter feed, adding: ‘You can still check your balance and use most features in our mobile banking app as normal. We’re looking into the problem now and we’ll update you as soon as possible. Thanks for bearing with us.’ But angry customers took to social media to complain about being locked out.
One customer wrote: ‘Why does the website say online banking is working when it isn’t? I desperately need to transfer money to my current account as my son is unexpectedly off school and I can’t buy him any food. He’s really upset I don’t have access to any other money other than in my savings.’
Another said: ‘ Eventually managed to log in just now but it logged me out while using the transfer facility – for my own protection then it won’t let me log on again. The problem is far from fixed. Will it be like TSB? “Everything is fine” when obviously not.’
By 5pm Barclays said its online and mobile banking was up and running again. Its telephone banking system was being brought back online slowly. Last night experts warned that banks must do more to protect customers from IT failures that leave them without access to their money.
Gareth Shaw, money expert at consumer group Which?, said: ‘This is the latest in a suc- cession of recent IT problems to hit bank customers and should serve as a reminder to all banks to do all they can to make sure their systems are up to scratch.
‘We would strongly advise Barclays customers to keep evidence of any extra expenses they incur in order to claim them back.’
Martyn James, consumer expert at the complaints website Resolver, called the meltdown ‘extremely worrying’.
He said: ‘ Systems failures aren’t just about the inconvenience, they can have a really serious impact.
‘ We’ve seen people left stranded abroad, losing home purchases or simply left without any means of feeding the family.’
A spokesman for Barclays said: ‘We’re very sorry about the technical problems our customers have experienced today.
‘Everything is now back up and running, and we’re really grateful for customers bearing with us.’
‘Failures can have a serious impact’