Lloyds Banking Group has apologised after thousands of customers were unable to make payments or access accounts due to an IT glitch affecting its mobile apps and websites. The outage, which began shortly after 11am on Wednesday, impacted multiple brands including Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Scottish Widows and MBNA, according to Downdetector.
More than three hours after the outage started, some customers were still experiencing problems. Many reported being unable to send money, access accounts, or make purchases for lunch and groceries. Some customers called for compensation for the inconvenience.
In response to customer complaints on X, Lloyds and Halifax acknowledged the issues and apologised, stating they were working to fix the problem. Shortly before 3pm, the group announced that all services were back up and running, advising any customers still facing issues to wait a few minutes and try again.
The incident follows a previous IT glitch in March, when a software defect during an update exposed personal data of nearly 500,000 customers across Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland apps. This latest outage raises further questions about customer protections as banks continue to close branches and push users towards digital banking.
