HSBC and First Direct customers hit by online and ATM errors

Saturday, 05 November 2011 10:43

HSBC was hit by disruption to its online banking services and some of its cash-points yesterday afternoon for over two hours at one of the busiest times of the week.

Friday afternoon is a time that many people draw cash out ready to spend over the weekend and Friday is also pay-day for many people who would be using the online services to check their balances and that they had been paid.

From 2.45pm until 5pm, when normal service began to be restored on a phased basis, customers were unable to perform everyday banking operations due to a fault with a server.

The error affected some debit card payments in stores. The bank’s customer services team had to resort to using Twitter to let worried customers know that HSBC were working hard to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

An HSBC spokesman said that he was confident that there had been no security risk to customers’ accounts as a result of the server error but that anyone who was concerned could talk to staff at their branch.

First Direct website customers also reported problems accessing their online accounts. First Direct is part of the HSBC group.

HSBC was unable to confirm how many of its 3,789 cash machines had been affected by the error which affected customers with other banks who could not use HSBC’s cash-point facilities and also meant that HSBC cards could not be used on other banks ATMs.

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