Lloyds latest to suffer hitch as ATMs go down
THOUSANDS of Lloyds customers were frozen out of key banking services yesterday afternoon and evening as the bank’s IT systems went down.
The crash hit all of the group’s main brands including Lloyds, TSB, Halifax and Bank of Scotland.
Around half of the group’s 7,000 cash machines went down, and some customers were affected until around 9pm.
All the brands use the same systems, including the TSB.
The lender has been set up with a new high street presence and will be sold off as an independent bank, but has agreed to use Lloyds’ IT systems for the foreseeable future instead of establishing its own.
“We apologise that between 3pm and 6pm some customers were unable to complete their debit card transactions,” said a Lloyds spokesperson.
“Although the majority of transactions were unaffected, we are very sorry for the inconvenience that this will have caused.”
TSB’s chief executive Paul Pester took to Twitter to apologise to customers affected and promise he was working to resolve the problems.
The online payments systems were not affected by the crash.
The banking group was unable to explain why the crash had occurred, or what could be done to stop it happening again.
Lloyds’ problem comes after RBS’ payments systems went down three times in 18 months, most recently freezing out customers in early December.