Lloyds Bank and Nationwide hit by online issues as Microsoft reports outage
Lloyds Bank and Nationwide have apologised to customers for issues affecting their online services amid a report from Microsoft about a fresh outage that affected its public cloud computing platform.
Hundreds of Lloyds customers reported that they were unable to see their transactions through online banking on Monday morning, while Nationwide said some users “experienced intermittent issues with our website for a short period”.
The problems started around 7am, with more than 650 people complaining of outages on Monday morning, according to website DownDetector.
A Lloyds spokesperson said: “Our mobile app is back to normal. We’re sorry some of our customers had issues viewing transactions and it may have been running slower earlier today.”
The news came as Microsoft separately announced it was “investigating reports of customers having issues accessing the Azure portal in UK regions”.
It is unclear whether the banking problems were related to the issues reported by Microsoft, which have since been resolved. City PM approached Microsoft for comment.
A Nationwide spokesperson said the lender was “aware of a third-party issue that is impacting a number of organisations” and had caused disruptions to its own website.
Microsoft’s computer systems were plunged into chaos in July after a botched software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused a massive worldwide outage affecting banks, airlines, hospitals and more.
Virgin Money also posted on X to apologise for issues with its app and internet banking service. A person familiar with the matter told City PM the problems were unrelated to Azure.
A spokesperson for the bank said: “Some of our customers experienced issues viewing their transactions online this morning, but we’re pleased to say that everything is now back to normal and apologise for any inconvenience this caused.”
In June, major technology outages affecting the digital services of several UK banks left some customers unable to send or receive money.
The problems stemmed from the “faster payment system”, which enables digital transactions to be sent between banks and building societies within seconds.