Faster Payments issue affects UK banks
Here we go again. Halifax, Lloyds, Bank of Scotland and Monzo have all been hit by an alleged Faster Payments outage today (20 July).
At 11.42am (UK time), Halifax (and the others) reported the problems on Twitter.
We are currently experiencing difficulties with Faster Payments and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. We are working to fix this and will update you as soon as we can.
— Halifax (@AskHalifaxBank) July 20, 2018
Responses from customers ranged from “Halifax are such a joke. Do you ever not have issues? Pathetic” to “Please tell me why I still bank with you? Complete and utter joke. Worst bank that constantly has issues with things!”.
A Faster Payments spokesperson told FinTech Futures: “The central Faster Payments system is operating normally, however we are aware that Lloyds Banking Group is currently experiencing technical issues connected to its Faster Payments service. This is the system that is used to process telephone, internet, mobile and standing order payments. We are working to support Lloyds to ensure the issue is resolved as quickly as possible. Anyone experiencing problems should contact their bank or building society.”
Around 2.30pm Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland said the matter had been resolved and said it was “an industry-wide issue”. The three banks also deleted their tweets from 11.42am – an unusual move – and one we wished to clarify.
FinTech Futures contacted Lloyds. It ignored our questions about the deleted tweets and responded: “We are aware that some of our customers are experiencing difficulties with making payments. We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
What a waste of time talking to them. And very poor form to ignore questions.
Anyway, these problems are occurring with depressing regularity in the UK.
Earlier this month, the Faster Payments service experienced issues with its central infrastructure between 1-5.30pm on Sunday (8 July), causing delays to payments sent during that time.
Last month, Lloyds, TSB, Halifax and Bank of Scotland reported that their banking apps had crashed leaving customers unable to log in.
TSB are no longer part of Lloyds and since the platform migration in April they no longer use their infrastructure, hence why they are not affected
Story updated to reflect this. Thanks.