Black horse down: Lloyds online banking services go dark
- Reference: 1725276068
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/09/02/black_horse_down_lloyds_online/
- Source link:
In a statement to The Register , a spokesperson for Lloyds Banking Group said: "We know some of our customers are having issues viewing their recent transactions and our app may be running slower than usual. We're sorry about this and we're working to have everything back to normal soon."
Problems started earlier this morning, according to outage monitoring service [1]Downdetector , with reports rolling in shortly after 0700 UTC. At the time of writing, those glitches are ongoing for many customers trying to access the bank's online services. Transactions are not showing up either in the app or via the website.
[2]
Customers can see a balance, but little else. On the plus side, payments and standing orders appear to be working normally.
[3]
[4]
Some customers blamed the outage on the arrival of the company's [5]new banking app . However, issues with the website indicated that problems lie elsewhere. Lloyds' social media team appears as clueless as customers regarding the problem, initially suggesting that clearing cookies or trying a different browser might resolve things. It did not.
On its latest update to X, Lloyds [6]wrote at 1016 UTC: "We are aware there is an issue and our IT team are currently working to fix this as soon as possible. If you can use the 'September' tab, you should be able to see all transactions."
[7]Black Friday? More like Blackout Friday for HSBC's online and mobile banking
[8]Attack on direct debit provider London & Zurich leaves customers with 6-figure backlogs
[9]Ex-CIO must pay £81k over Total Shambles Bank migration
[10]Stock-trading apps fall under the feet of stampeding panicking investors
Like many companies, large swathes of Lloyds' IT is outsourced nowadays. In 2020, [11]it inked a contract with Microsoft to manage its mobile and desktop services. In 2017, [12]it signed an outsourcing agreement with IBM . It has also had its fair share of outages, enduring a [13]nightmare start to 2020 as its online services experienced significant downtime.
Today's unplanned downtime is more about viewing transactions. And as if to rub salt into customers' wounds, the outage has come as Lloyds Banking Group [14]announced another round of branch closures .
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Group retail director Vin Maru told Sky News: "Our branch network is an important way for us to support our customers, but we need to adapt to the significant growth in customers choosing to do most of their everyday banking online."
Assuming, of course, those online services are actually working. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://downdetector.co.uk/status/lloyds-bank/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZtXhIvIJtK6Z1C2LyflJXQAAAZA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZtXhIvIJtK6Z1C2LyflJXQAAAZA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZtXhIvIJtK6Z1C2LyflJXQAAAZA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/lloyds-bank-mobile-banking/id469964520
[6] https://x.com/LloydsBank/status/1830550274638786776
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/24/hsbc_outage/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/23/ransomware_attack_at_london_zurich/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/14/ex_cio_tsb_fine/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/05/stock_market_outages/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/16/lloyds_microsoft_managed_desktop/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2017/06/06/lloyds_confirms_ibm_cloudy_outsourcing/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/02/lloyds_outage/
[14] https://www.investments.lloydsbank.com/markets-and-commentary/market-news/article/?id=9447169&type=bsm
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZtXhIvIJtK6Z1C2LyflJXQAAAZA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Not just Lloyds
I was just going to say something similar. If you look at downdetector.co.uk you can see a number of organisations (including a few banks) showing a spike in problems this morning that closely matches the spike in Microsoft Azure problems.
Cash
This is much more convenient than using cash in your own under the mattress bank.
I mean if you look at cash you can't see transactions either, just you get the sense of money missing.
Also if you cannot see your transaction history, that's just something you don't have to worry about.
That £200 withdrawal last night? Now you can't see. Less guilt.
I'd say banking apps should go offline more often.
and if you can't make payment? You could get to talk to actual human about it!
Mum called with this issue this morning. She's just texted to say it's working now.
The much talked about bank of Mum and Dad :-)
Don't tell me the bank of Mum and Dad use Azure too.
Who, like a real bank, have outsourced technical support.
The initial call made it sound like she'd been scammed out of all her money. So I'm glad it was just a technical glitch hiding it from her.
"large swathes of Lloyds' IT is outsourced nowadays"
That makes it so much easier to know what changed and where . . .
Thought it was a glitch
Earlier this morning, no transactions were showing up under the 'All' tab (Android app, so not just an ios problem), but as stated in the article, they showed up under the September and August 'tabs'.
Just tried it again and all seems to be back to normal.
Technology - marvellous when it works...
A realisation of what they are
As Lloyds gets rid of all its branch network, how long do you think it will take for them to realise that the comment from many years ago that banks are 'IT companies with banking licences' is actually true?
And that to outsource your core function should make you question why you exist?
Re: A realisation of what they are
Someone's gotta feed the horse
Re: A realisation of what they are
"IT companies with banking licences" is only true so far, because banks still make their money on the balance sheet, by lending for more than the loaned capital costs them.
The point is valid that IT is absolutely central to any large customer service outfit or transaction processor, but it's not usually what makes them money - although done badly it usually loses them money. If you look at energy suppliers they might seem to be "IT companies with an energy supply licence", but again, poor IT loses them money, good IT doesn't make them more money.
I think the definition of an IT company is that they intend to make money from either selling software (outright or SaaS) or from data processing.
"And that to outsource your core function should make you question why you exist?"
That is true, but I think that banks (energy suppliers etc) all still see their IT assets as a big, complex, ugly, expensive cost that they don't understand - and don't want to understand. They outsource it not really to save money (made up business cases notwithstanding) but because they don't want to get their hands dirty.
Glad this didn't happen on Saturday
I needed to change my address for my MBNA credit card. (MBNA are part of the Lloyds Group.)
Logged into my online account and hunted around looking for the change address section.
There isn't one!
Their online website tells you to phone or......download the app and change your details on that. Because using the app to change your details is the easiest way to change your details. It said.
So I did. I downloaded the app, put my very complicated password into it. Waited for the confirmation code number to be delivered by txt and finally found the change address section. All while being logged in to my account.
To be fair, once logged into the app changing my address was very easy. I just don't know why they can't put that simply function in their web account service.
I've now deleted the app. I think I'll soon be cancelling the credit card.
Thanks Lloyds, you're making my life easier.
Re: Glad this didn't happen on Saturday
It's the enshittification of [1]enshitification !
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/30/tech_monopoly_doctorow/
"Lloyds' social media team appears as clueless as customers regarding the problem"
Surprise, surprise. Since when did their 'social media team' replace their technical helpdesk?
Best headline in a while
Nothing useful to add to the discussion, other than this headline is one of the best I have seen from el reg this year.
Re: Best headline in a while
more subtle than "black horse knackered" for sure ;-)
Re: Best headline in a while
No one tell them that we've used it before...
What does lloydsbank.com run on?
www.lloydsbank.com: Reverse DNS a104-73-177-107.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com
Well....
Lloyds has just announced that their website and app will look different, so people aren't spooked by the change. Perhaps it is connected to that. Maybe the new look is minimalist.
Re: Well....
Also great help for scammers to give them window of opportunity to send victims link to spoofed bank pages that look different.
Not just Lloyds
This looks like it might have been a repeat of the Azure FD etc. issues from July 30th as the Microsoft Azure portal and numerous other sites were down and came back up at approximately the same time which chimes with the July 30th incident. Not that I'm implying correaltion=causation but just that it's a strong possibility IMO.