Topline
Barclays, one of the world’s largest banks and the second largest bank in England, reported issues Friday with its mobile app, online banking services and customer accounts as thousands of people reported problems accessing their financial information.
The signage of a branch of Barclays bank in central London.
Key Facts
Downdetector, which tracks web user’s reports of outages, on Friday had recorded thousands of reports over five hours, starting at 9 a.m. local time (4 a.m. EST), that mobile banking, online banking and bill pay weren’t working.
The bank confirmed the problem two hours later and told customers they could still use credit cards and ATMs as normal, but customers online have reported issues paying in person and getting cash at machines even with money in their accounts.
Barclays also initially told customers it would be able to help through customer support over the phone, but the latest update to its systems status page showed telephone banking was also disrupted: “We’re sorry, we’re having some problems helping you over the phone right now – we’re urgently working to fix this,” the website read at 11 a.m. EST.
Customers replying to Barclays’ announcement about the outage on social media have pointed out Friday—the last day of the month—is both pay day for many people in England and the last day to submit self-assessment tax returns to the UK’s tax, payment and customs authority.
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Big Number
20 million. That’s how many customers Barclays has in the United Kingdom, according to BBC News, and the bank processes over 40% of the country’s credit and debit card transactions.
Tangent
This isn’t the first major banking outage of the year. Earlier this month, Capital One customers experienced a dayslong outage that left thousands locked out of their bank accounts and unable to access payment processing, deposits and other functions. The issues were reportedly caused by a power outage at FIS Global, the third-party vendor that handles payment processing and deposits, and the outage lasted from Jan. 16 to 19.
Further Reading
Barclays hit by major IT outage on tax deadline day (BBC News)
Capital One Made ‘Substantial Progress’ Resolving Outage—Here’s What To Know (Forbes)
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