Britain’s top banks clocked up 33 days’ worth of IT glitches in two years

LONDON – Britain’s Treasury Committee said on March 6 that nine top British banks and building societies suffered at least 803 hours of unplanned tech and systems outages in the last two years, preventing millions of customers from accessing their cash.

The cross-party group of lawmakers asked banks in February for the number of instances and the amount of time in hours each of them suffered IT failures that prevented customers from using their services.

At least 158 banking IT failure incidents affected millions of customers’ ability to access and use services between January 2023 and February 2025, the data showed.

The figures did not, however, include the most recent outages affecting Barclays customers between Jan 31 and Feb 2 and various banks on Feb 28.

The Treasury Committee said it will be requesting further information from the banks on those outages.

Barclays, which reported 33 outages over the reporting period, said its most recent glitch led to the failure of 56 per cent of online payments. It said it expects to pay between £5 million (S$8.6 million) to £7.5 million in compensation to customers.

HSBC and Santander reported 32 glitches each, the second-largest number of individual outages over the two-year period.

Nationwide reported 18, with NatWest and Lloyds reporting 13 and 12, respectively.

Chairperson of Treasury Select Committee Meg Hillier said she felt “reassured” banks were doing everything possible to minimise the impact on their customers.

“For families and individuals living pay cheque to pay cheque, losing access to banking services on payday can be a terrifying experience,” she said in a statement.

“I am particularly thankful to those who are compensating their customers well for the stress they endure and would encourage all to reflect on whether they are doing enough in that regard.” REUTERS