THOUSANDS of customers at a major bank were locked out of online banking on Tuesday morning.
The HSBC mobile banking app went down according to customers who complained in their masses on social media.
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Problems started shortly after 7.45am, according to Downdetector which logs outages, with more than 2,000 reports of issues.
Customers complained that they couldn’t log on to their online banking app.
One person on Twitter said: “Looks like your app is down, I can’t log in. It says try again later.”
“HSBC your app is down, there are lots of tweets on this today,” said another.
A third customer said: “All mobile banking is down yet your service detector shows all is well.”
Customers of First Direct, which is also owned by HSBC, have also claimed that they can’t access the bank’s mobile app too.
One person on Twitter said: “First Direct your servers are down, again.”
HSBC confirmed the issue on its Twitter page and said: “We understand some customers are having trouble accessing banking services as usual right now.
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“We’re investigating this as a matter of urgency and will share an update as soon as possible.”
It later responded to a raft of complaints on the social network and confirmed that the issue had been resolved by 10am.
Can I claim compensation for an outage?
Banks aren’t obliged to pay compensation to customers if there’s been an outage or if they’ve experienced technical issues.
But you might be entitled to some money back depending on how much the disruption affected you.
You’ll have to present evidence of how the outage negatively affected you, including any extra costs incurred through possible late payment fees.
You should make a note of when you were unable to access the services and the names of the people you spoke to at the company that suffered the outage.
You can find more detail about how to complain to Santander on its website.
If your bank doesn’t resolve any complaint, you can take your case up with the Financial Ombudsman Service.
It is an independent body which will resolve any issues based on what it thinks is “fair and reasonable” depending on the circumstances of the case.
The service can resolve your issue over the phone, by email or by post depending on what best suits you.
In the case of an IT system outage at a bank, the FOS says any compensation you may receive will be dependent on your circumstances and whether you lost any money as a result.
If it finds the bank was at fault, you may see any fees, charges or fines reimbursed.
