London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

NatWest's online banking and mobile app crash on Black Friday

NatWest's online banking and mobile app crash on Black Friday

Customers complain of being unable to access online and app services on busy shopping day
Black Friday has turned into a nightmare for NatWest customers after the bank’s online and mobile phone app went down and payments and transfers failed on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Many of the bank’s customers were unable to access their money over the phone app or online for most of the day, and transfers between accounts vanished.

The bank told customers: “We are currently experiencing intermittent issues with our Anytime Banking service, our Mobile app and Bankline including delays in processing some payments and transfers.” Later in the day it said online services had been restored, but app issues remained.

The IT glitch provoked a furious backlash from customers who claimed the bank had ruined their Black Friday spending plans, and left them unable to access funds on what for millions of people is the monthly payday.

Shoppers are expected to spend £4.3bn over the 12-day Black Friday period to Monday 2 December, up more than 2% on last year with much of that spent online. On Friday, Barclaycard said it had seen a 9% rise in transactions per second during the peak period of trading between 1pm and 2pm, with card payments running at 1,184 per second.

Some shopping centres also said they had been busy. This year, the timing of the US-inspired discount day has fallen on or after pay day for more people than it did in 2018.

Gordon McKinnon, operations director at Intu said the number of visitors to its centres around the country, which include Manchester’s Trafford Centre and Lakeside in Essex, was up nearly 13% on Black Friday last year. He said numbers were “likely boosted by the proximity to payday, and the day falling a week closer to Christmas than in previous years.”

NatWest, which is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland and has 14 million customers in England and Wales, said debit and credit card payments and cash machines were not affected by the outage. But customers reported that transfers simply disappeared – and when they tried to contact the bank, call centre lines were in meltdown.

Twitter user Zanny/Stitchy was typical of customers left bewildered when their money vanished. “I moved money from our joint account to mine, & it’s just disappeared ... the balance went down but no money appeared in my account.”

Miss Carla B said: “I need to get shopping in. What a joke ... I tried transferring the money into my mums account yep not showing…”

Another Twitter user, Adam Davies, said: “Can’t access my account on the day that I am meant to sort Christmas out. Thank you for ruining another year with your second rate services.”

NatWest pleaded with customers not to keep trying to send payments, as it could result in duplication issues. “Please do not resend any payments as we are working to get the original payment processed as soon as possible and don’t want to risk duplication of the transaction,” it said.

Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk
The IT failure is yet another embarrassment for a bank with a long history of tech issues – a fiasco in 2012 left some customers locked out of their accounts for weeks – and came just as it was hoping to sign up for its new digital bank, Bo.

A NatWest spokesman said that as the shopping day came to a close, it was still unable to fully fix the issue. In a statement it said: “We are aware that some NatWest customers are still experiencing intermittent issues accessing our mobile and online banking. We apologise to customers for the inconvenience and are working hard to fix the problem. There is no impact on debit cards, credit cards, ATMs, telephone and branch banking services – customers can continue to use these as normal.”

In the run-up to Black Friday, NatWest said it would confidently “process over 1 million customer card transactions per hour”. But with the glitch happening during the annual shopping frenzy, it left some customers saying they would switch to rivals such as Monzo or Starling instead.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×