HSBC has apologized after UK customers reported experiencing problems accessing mobile and online banking services on Friday night. Customers took to Twitter to complain that the HSBC app had gone down, while some said they were unable to pay for shopping as their card was declined. HSBC said both personal and business mobile and banking services were affected.
The bank added that the issue was resolved after three-and-a-half hours. “Banking services are back up and running following an earlier service disruption. To those impacted, thanks very much for your patience and we’re really sorry for the inconvenience,” HSBC tweeted. Customers first began experiencing issues accessing their accounts online at about 20:30 GMT and the problem was fixed shortly before midnight, it added.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. View original tweet on Twitter On Downdetector, an outage tracking website, thousands of users posted reports of issues, peaking with more than 5,000 reports at about 21:00.
Earlier, HSBC apologized to “those impacted for the inconvenience” and said it was “working hard” to fix the issue. One customer tweeted that he had to leave his watch in a restaurant as collateral because he was unable to pay. Another was that they had to walk out of the supermarket because their card was declined – and it did not work at a cash machine. Several people also reported difficulties with paying bills online.