Santander’s online banking system crashes leaving millions of customers unable to access their accounts
- The crash comes on the last Friday of the month – often payday for many workers
- It also leaves customers with a headache ahead of the bank holiday weekend
- The bank said its team are ‘working hard to resolve this issue as soon as possible’
Santander customers were unable to access their bank accounts online for what seemed to be several hours on Friday.
The bank said on Twitter that there were problems with online banking, though some users seemed still able to access the app.
Its social media accounts were inundated with complaints from customers desperate to make transactions on the last Friday of the month – payday for many workers.
The outage also comes ahead of the bank holiday weekend, across which millions will be out spending money.
One frustrated user described it as ‘possibly the worst day to have an issue’.
Another said: ‘My pay from work didn’t come through even though it’s been sent. And I can’t get onto my online accounts to pay my rent.’
A third added: ‘You must be doing something about this surely? It’s been hours now, and on the last Friday of the month too! Have banking to do today so please get it sorted!’
Another joked: ‘It looks like @santanderuk has broken up early for the long weekend!’
Others pointed out they needed to pay staff and queried if penalty issues accrued from making late payments as a result would be covered by the bank.
Santander said in a tweet: ‘We are currently experiencing issues with customers logging in to Online Banking.
‘Our team are working hard to resolve this as soon as possible. If you do need to log in, please try again later.’
Reports from users on Twitter suggest that the outage may have been running since around 9am on Friday morning, while Santander made its statement at about 1pm.
Santander has been contacted for further comment.