Hargreaves Lansdown, a leading UK retail investment platform, has issued an apology to its customers following widespread IT issues that left them unable to access accounts during a period of significant financial market volatility.
The platform confirmed it was grappling with technical problems impacting sections of its website and mobile application.
This prevented clients from logging in, viewing their portfolios, executing transactions, or utilising other essential services.
Hargreaves Lansdown sought to reassure users, stating there was "no evidence of a cyber incident or a data breach" and that "all customers’ assets and data was secure".
The company added it was "working to restore the services as soon as possible".
The disruption was corroborated by service monitoring website Downdetector, which recorded a significant surge in reported problems throughout Thursday evening and Friday morning.
The outage meant some services were unavailable, including placing trades or adding or withdrawing money from accounts.
Hargreaves Lansdown is the UK’s biggest DIY investment platform, offering services including investment and savings ISAs and pension accounts.
It comes less than two weeks before the financial year draws to a close at the end of March.
The issues are also occurring in the context of heightened volatility in the world’s financial markets, with oil and gas prices rising and falling sharply in response to developments to the conflict in the Middle East.
Stocks and shares have also had a rollercoaster week with the UK’s FTSE 100 dropping to a more than three-month low on Thursday, before recovering some of the losses on Friday.
