Thousands of HSBC customers in the UK were unable to access online and mobile banking services on Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year. According to Downdetector, over 4,000 customers reported problems with the HSBC app on Friday.
The bank acknowledged the outage on X at 11pm, stating that services were being restored and apologising for the disruption. HSBC attributed the issue to an internal system problem, which also affected online card purchases.
The timing was particularly problematic as 24 November was payday for some customers. One user on X commented: “Literally the worst timing ever. People got paid and have bills to pay.” Another wrote: “Got to move some money so I can buy some Black Friday purchases (that I don’t need).”
Earlier on Friday, users saw a message in the app stating that HSBC was “performing a system upgrade”. The disruption did not affect First Direct or M&S Bank customers.
HSBC, which has around 15 million UK customers, has been closing physical branches as customers shift to online banking. By the end of this year, it will have 327 branches, down from 590 in 2021.
