“We understand some customers are having issues accessing banking services right now. We’re really sorry and are investigating as a matter of urgency,” the bank wrote in a post on X Wednesday (Aug. 27) morning.
A report by the BBC said thousands of people had reported problems on outage-checking site Downdetector, spiking around 6 a.m. EST/11 a.m. BST.
That report pointed out that this is the latest in a long string of outages at major banks. A report in March found that nine major banks and building societies have seen around 803 hours—or around 33 days—of outages in the last two years.
According to the BBC report, customers had taken to social media to complain about the outage, noting that it is happening as many U.K. banks—HSBC among them—are closing down physical branches.
HSBC announced in 2022 that it was closing 114 branches in the U.K. It later pledged not to close any more locations until 2026.
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Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has found that banks are increasingly combining digital and physical offerings, with 42% of consumers handling their banking online, and 46.8% of that group doing so through mobile means. Around two-thirds of consumers said they used an app on their phone for banking (mobile banking, 68.6%) or from their desktop with a browser (online banking, 66.6%) at least once per month.
“Banks are examining and re-examining their tech stacks to more fully tap into instant payments, digital account openings and embedded finance, among other initiatives,” PYMNTS wrote last year.
This month also brought the news that banks in the U.K. are working hard to land Generation Z consumers. As Bloomberg News reported, these lenders are offering sign-on bonuses and other incentives to draw new customers, while also updating their digital banking offerings to meet the expectations Gen Z consumers have about banking online.
Still, the report added, banks have found it tough to engage with these customers, who are more likely than others to open accounts in order to gain sign-on bonuses, maintain multiple accounts while typically using just one primary one, and turning to separate apps for different financial needs.
Attracting and retaining younger customers is also tough for credit unions, according to PYMNTS Intelligence research, due to a gap between what modern financial consumers expect and what credit unions provide.
Among Gen Z consumers, just 23% belong to credit unions, while only 14% use a credit union as their chief financial provider.
