Customers of three of the UK’s major high street banks have taken to Twitter to complain that they have been unable to access mobile banking.

The mobile platforms of Barclays, Santander and RBS (including NatWest) struggled to cope with high volumes of mobile traffic as customers tried to log in to check their wages had been paid in.

RBS, which has been plagued by glitches over the law few months, said: "We are currently experiencing record usage of our mobile banking app. Over 5,500 customers are logging on every minute."

At the time of writing, both RBS and Santander’s apps were understood to be up and running again.

Meanwhile, Barclays’ service was still down and "being looked into on an urgent basis".

Michael Allen, director of APM, Compuware, criticised the banks for not predicting the high traffic.

He said: "High demand for banking services on payday should be a predictable scenario for a bank.

"Today’s customers expect 24/7 availability, and failure to meet these expectations results in very public condemnation – as we can see from the flurry of angry Tweets.
"The fact that Barclays, RBS and Santander are all experiencing problems shows this isn’t an isolated problem, but one the industry as a whole is facing

"Banks need to get a handle on this situation; otherwise, we will see more failures and more unhappy customers."

 

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