Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland customers were locked out of their mobile banking apps on Friday, with RBS subsidiary NatWest blaming the problem on high traffic.
Issues at both banks began early this morning and have still not been resolved at pixel time. There have also been reports that some Santander customers have been unable to access online and mobile services, although the bank has yet to comment.
Furious customers have taken to social media, prompting Barclays, RBS and NatWest to tap Twitter to apologise and to encourage people to use online banking, which is unaffected by the problem.
On what is payday for millions of Brits, NatWest has put the issue down to record traffic as more than 5500 customers log in to its app every minute. This, though, has provided scant consolation to many locked-out customers:
Mobile banking has soared in popularity over the last year. In November Barclays explicitly cited its rise as a central reason for plans to axe 1700 customer-facing jobs from its branch network.
Michael Allen, director of APM at Compuware says: "Today's customers expect 24/7 availability, and failure to meet these expectations results in very public condemnation - as we can see from the flurry of angry Tweets. The fact that Barclays, RBS and Santander are all experiencing problems shows this isn't an isolated problem, but one the industry as a whole is facing."