Nationwide Hit With Payments Issue

Nationwide has been hit with a technical issue that caused delays both to inbound and outbound payments for customers, just days before Christmas.

The problems occurred on Tuesday this week and took most of the day to be resolved, with the building society unable to give a timescale on when the issues would be fixed when customers pursued the issue on social media. It took until approximately 10pm on Tuesday night for the fix to go through.

Nationwide had apologised to customers, acknowledging that the timing is not ideal and stating that they were working hard to fix the problem.

Delays To Wages

One of the biggest concerns that customers had is that this was delaying wage payments. Customers who were due to be paid found that their funds have not reached their account, which can have a knock-on effect on their finances.

The issue was compounded by the fact that scheduled payments, such as direct debits and standing orders, were not affected. So, customers were worried that they were committed to making bill payments when they may not have the funds in place to cover them.

While Nationwide is yet to comment on the payments that were missed yesterday, banks would normally refund payment charges incurred due to problems such as this.

However, customers, many of whom are due to be paid early by their employers to help cover the festive season, were also worried that their cash shortfall could prevent them from paying for things such as food and presents that had been budgeted for in these last few days before Christmas.

Nationwide had asked customers to avoid re-sending outbound payments that have failed, as there was the potential that they would still be processed and so payments could be taken multiple times.

Unfortunately, there is currently a delay on outbound payments reaching people’s accounts as well as inbound payments reaching Nationwide current accounts. We are working hard to resolve the issue and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

All other services are working normally, and members can continue to use their cards to pay for goods and services, access the Internet Bank and Banking App and withdraw cash from ATMs.

Nationwide statement on Tuesday

2021 Banking Issues Continue

While the problem is now resolved, customers were struggling to make and receive payments for almost the entire day. It’s not the first time in 2021 that banks have seen major issues with banking access and payments, a problem compounded by the banks’ efforts to shift to digital banking, moving away from cash and branch services.

While there is a clear trend that customers are moving more to card payments and digital banking services, when these services fail there is a concern about the backup options available if local branches have been closed and fewer ATMs are available.

There are plans underway to guarantee branch and cash access, including a newly announced independent venture led by LINK that will evaluate any proposed closures that could impact customers, and make recommendations to ensure cash is still available.