HSBC apologises after thousands of Brits were locked out of their digital banking systems on Black Friday in a crash that was a ‘real headache’

• The outage stopped many customers from taking part in the Black Friday sales

HSBC has apologised after more than 10,000 customers were unable to access their online accounts yesterday.

The outage, which began just after 7am, meant many customers could not take part in the Black Friday sales.

It was also the last Friday of the month, when a lot of workers are paid, leaving them unable to check if payments had been made so they could pay bills.

One frustrated customer wrote on X: ‘Bit worrying that big banks like HSBC can go down for this many hours. I need access to my account.’ Another complained: ‘Literally the worst timing ever. People got paid and have bills to pay.’

Sam Richardson, of consumer group Which?, added: ‘This fell on Black Friday, when many people were looking to make significant savings on big-ticket items.’

It’s one of the most popular banking apps around the world, but it appears that the HSBC app has gone down this morning

So far, more than 4,077 issues have been logged on Down Detector. Of those who reported problems, 64 per cent said they were having issues with mobile banking, while 21 per cent said it was online banking they were struggling with

MailOnline attempted to access the app, and received an error message reading: ‘Service unavailable. This service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later’

Several frustrated users have taken to X to discuss the outage. Many have pointed out the fact that it’s occurred on BlackFriday, as well as pay day for many

Replying to HSBC’s tweet on the issue, one user wrote: ‘Oh dear, on Black Friday, of all days!’

Several users have pointed out the fact that the outage has occurred on pay day, with one saying he had ‘bills that need paying’

Down Detector gets network status updates from various sources including social media and reports submitted to its website. The website’s ‘heat map’ of user-submitted problem reports showed that affected customers were mostly in London and Cardiff, although there were reports across the country

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HSBC said the glitch was caused by an internal system issue. It did not affect customers with First Direct or M&S Bank, which are divisions of the company.

A spokesman for HSBC said yesterday: ‘We’re working hard to restore HSBC UK’s mobile and online banking service. We understand this is really frustrating for some of our customers and we are really sorry for the inconvenience.’

Replying to HSBC’s tweet during the outage, one user wrote: ‘Oh dear, on Black Friday, of all days!’

Another added: ‘HELP! HSBC app is down. On payday too. I have bills that need paying!!!’

And one vented: ‘Payday for many, plus Black Friday, and HSBC decides there’s going to be an outage across their mobile app and online banking. Good job!’

Down Detector gets network status updates from various sources including social media and reports submitted to its website. 

The website’s ‘heat map’ of user-submitted problem reports showed that affected customers were mostly in London and Cardiff, although there were reports across the country. 

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