HSBC Frustrates Customers With Online Banking Outage

HSBC internet banking customers checking their account balances following the post-Christmas binge faced frustration this morning as the bank’s websites servers appeared to falter..

Website status checker Downdetector.com showed that HSBC’s online banking service had received thousands of reports of problems as users took to Twitter to vent their anger at the bank. Problems seems to have started just after 9am GMT.

A HSBC spokesperson told TechWeekEurope: “We are aware that customers are having trouble logging into online banking and mobile services this morning and we are working hard to fix the problem.”

Problems

HSBC’s UK Help Twitter account is rife with replies to grumpy users who can’t access their accounts online. HSBC said it is “aware some customers are experiencing problems”. The solution? “Please try later,” the Twitter account advises. TechWeekEurope itself was not able to access the HSBC online banking website.

“People are encountering problems with our website, we are working on this,” another message from HSBC reads.

In other (and most likely entirely unconnected) HSBC news, the bank last weekend cut its ties with one of the UK’s biggest government-funded Muslim charities ‘Islamic Relief’ following fears of terror funding.

The charity itself said that it was surprised with HSBC’s decision. “We were and remain extremely surprised at HSBC’s stance. We know that similar action has been taken by HSBC with other clients, so this appears to be generic risk-averse behaviour rather than something specific to Islamic Relief,” the charity said.

Update

HSBC now has this to say: “HSBC confirms that Business and Retail customers have been unable to access online and mobile banking on Monday 4 January since 8am. Personal Mobile Banking was restored by noon.We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and our teams are working non-stop to restore all other services. We will update our customers regularly.”

Take our data breaches of 2015 quiz here!