Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland suffer UK-wide outage

Thousands of customers across the UK were unable to access their bank accounts or make payments on Wednesday after a widespread technical outage hit the online and mobile services of Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland. The disruption, which began shortly after 11 a.m., left many people stranded at checkouts and unable to complete urgent transactions.

The banks, all owned by Lloyds Banking Group, confirmed the issue and apologized to customers. In identical statements posted on social media, Lloyds and Halifax said they were aware some customers were having issues with their apps and online banking and were working hard to restore services. They did not provide an estimated time for a full resolution.

Reports on the outage tracking service Downdetector showed a sharp spike in complaints beginning in late morning, peaking at around 5,000 reports for Lloyds alone. The problems were concentrated in major urban areas including London, Belfast, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Newcastle. According to Downdetector data, the majority of complaints related to the mobile apps, with additional issues reported for logging in and online banking.