NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland have been hit by the second major technical glitch in a week, leaving both banks’ main websites out of action for hours.
The sites went down at just after 9.25am on Tuesday and were still not working hours later. At around 3.30pm, the RBS site returned to normal service, but the NatWest site was still out of action by late afternoon (5pm).
A spokesperson for the banks said they were working hard to fix the problems and added that customers could still access online banking via direct links – for example, via nwolb.com in the case of NatWest – and could use other methods such as the mobile app, cash machines, phone banking and branches.
However, large numbers of customers voiced their frustration via the banks’ Twitter accounts and Facebook pages.
On Twitter, one customer asked: “Can you confirm what will happen to those who go overdrawn because we are unable to transfer money? Will we still be charged??” Another wrote: “Any ETA? We’re waiting to complete on a house purchase and solicitors use your service so can’t pay our money over???”
A week earlier, some NatWest and RBS customers were affected by computer problems that prevent them from accessing credit card information through online and mobile banking. This was compounded by difficulties relating to its phone service for credit-card holders.
RBS has almost 19m customers globally, of which about 14m are at NatWest, though this includes all products and services.
