Barclays to Compensate Customers Amid Nationwide Banking Outages

Bank announces potential compensation of £12.5 million for customers affected by recent technology failures.

Barclays Bank has indicated it may pay out up to £12.5 million in compensation to customers impacted by technology outages experienced over the last two years.

This announcement follows a review by the Treasury Committee, which reported that there have been more than 33 days of unplanned technological failures affecting nine of the UK’s largest banks and building societies.

The scrutiny centered on a series of IT disruptions, with Barclays recently facing significant issues at the end of January, which coincided with pivotal dates for many customers, including payday and tax return deadlines.

During the January outages, it was reported that more than half of the attempts to process online payments failed.

In total, Barclays accounted for 15 incidents from 2023 to 2025, which affected approximately 3.3 million customers (excluding the most recent outage), contributing to the estimated compensation figure.

The data revealed other banks also experienced considerable technical difficulties.

Lloyds Banking Group reported 12 notable incidents, impacting 1.5 million customer payments and 3.8 million login attempts, leading to approximately £160,000 in compensation.

Nationwide Building Society recorded 18 incidents, affecting 2 million payment transactions, resulting in around £77,452 in compensation, while NatWest faced 13 significant issues, compensating approximately £348,000 for complaints received.

These findings are part of a broader investigation into at least 158 IT failure incidents across the nine institutions between January 2023 and February 2025, according to estimates provided to the Treasury Committee.

This total does not include Barclays’ recent incident or ongoing disruptions to other banks’ online services that have occurred in the weeks following the investigation.

Common reasons identified for these outages include issues with third-party suppliers, complications associated with system updates, and internal software errors.

Barclays clarified that its most recent outage was caused by a software issue within its mainframe operating system, explicitly stating that it was not the result of a cyberattack.

The bank noted that a software fix has been implemented by the unidentified third-party provider responsible for the system’s upkeep and is currently being tested.

In response to the situation, Barclays' UK chief executive Vim Maru expressed recognition of the distress caused to customers, acknowledging their loss and inconvenience.

Compensation payouts are intended not only to address distress but also to mitigate any charges customers incur, such as late payment fees, as a result of these outages.

Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Treasury Committee, emphasized the validity of customer frustrations amidst the recurring outages, pointing out that even top-performing banks face technological challenges.

She urged all banks to ensure timely communication with customers and to consider their compensation practices adequately.