NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers faced a frustrating start to the day on Friday, as a widespread outage locked them out of their banking apps. Users reported being unable to access their accounts or make transfers, just as many were due to receive their salaries and pay bills.
The NatWest app displayed an error message stating "some kind of error has occurred" and advising users that they "cannot establish a connection". RBS acknowledged that customers were experiencing difficulties with payments and transfers through its app.
According to Down Detector, a website that tracks service outages, reports of NatWest app issues began around 2am, with over 1,000 complaints by 6.50am. Hundreds of RBS customers also reported similar problems.
The timing of the outage was particularly inconvenient, coinciding with the last weekday of the month, when many employees receive their wages. It also came ahead of the start of the new month, a common time for bill payments.
A spokesperson for NatWest told The Independent: "Some customers have experienced difficulty in making payments via the mobile app this morning. Weâre working to resolve this as quickly as possible and weâre really sorry for any inconvenience caused."
This is not the first time this year that NatWest has encountered app issues. In May, users experienced a similar problem with logging in.
Frustrated customers took to social media to voice their concerns. One user, Zamaan Ismail, tweeted: "Natwest app down, typical... what is wrong with your app??? Cant log in, send payments, had to delete and re-download and just giving this EVERYTIME."
Another user expressed their frustration: "Hi. Your app keeps timing me out after like 5 seconds. Any idea why this is? Manâs got bills to pay!"
A further tweet highlighted the timing of the outage: "So Natwest online banking is down... pay day today and all the bills are due, oh today Excellent."
The error message displayed to NatWest app users read: "Weâre sorry, some kind of error has occurred when trying to establish a connection between your device and ourselves." Users were advised to close the app and try again, check their WiFi connection, ensure they were using the latest version of the app, and visit the bankâs customer service status page.
RBS acknowledged the issue in a message to customers on Twitter: "Weâre aware that thereâs been some issues with customers trying to arrange payments and transfers through the app. Weâve raised this internally and is currently being investigated by our technology team. Iâm afraid we donât have an exact timeframe on this."
The outage caused widespread disruption for customers and highlighted the reliance on digital banking services. Both banks are working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to their apps as soon as possible.
