HSBC apologises following 48 hour online banking outage
Banking giant HSBC has issued a grovelling apology to account holders after its online services were hit by a New Year glitch, denying many access to their cash for two days.
The global brand finally gained control of the situation last night but not before eliciting the ire of MPs who are now demanding that the bank urgently goes public with the reasons for the downtime and answers questions as to whether there is a ‘systemic weakness in infrastructure’.
HSBC's UK chief operating officer, John Hackett said: "I'm pleased to say that we have seen a steady return of service to internet banking in the past few hours for our personal and business customers," he added.
"We will be monitoring the service very closely, ready to respond should any new issues arise."
It is the latest UK bank to be beset by technical problems with rival Barclays unable to process some cash withdrawals last October and Royal Bank of Scotland, which suffered a series of technical problems last year.
HSBC described the fault as a ‘complex technical issue’ which caused both personal and business banking customers to have trouble accessing its website and mobile app.