Technical glitch leaves NatWest customers without money on payday

Update: 2.25pm, 27 March 2015: NatWest says the technical issue was resolved at 11.25am, however customers are still reporting issues via Twitter.

Some NatWest customers are this morning reporting problems with wages not being paid and transfers not going through.

NatWest, which is part of the RBS group, says there is a "technical issue" affecting NatWest customers only. But it wouldn't tell us how long the issue has been going on for, what the problem was, or when it's likely to be fixed.

A NatWest spokesman told us: "We are aware of some technical issues affecting NatWest customers this morning. We apologise to customers for the inconvenience and are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible." 

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A host of NatWest customers have taken to Twitter to ask what's going on and when they'll be able to access their money. The key issues we've seen raised are that payments don't seem to be going into and out of NatWest accounts.

Here are some of the tweets we've seen:

• @IsaacPevy: "I transferred some money from my current account to my savings and it appears to have just disappeared... Is this a tech issue?"

• @Baileyea: "Are you going to pay my partner's bank charges as she has bills to pay today but the money I have transferred is still not there?"

• @mariechamillard: "Bad day for a system failure, paying salaries today. When can we expect the systems to be restored?"

• @tiddletots: "Absolute disgrace again NatWest. Sort it out. No money showing on the account when wages should be there."

Last November RBS was fined £56 million following an IT meltdown in 2012, which meant about 6.5 million customers were unable to use online banking facilities or obtain accurate account balances from ATMs for a period of several weeks (see the RBS fined £56m over IT meltdown MSE News story).

What should I do?

Often in the past when delayed payments have resulted in customers being left out of pocket, banks have reimbursed the charges. NatWest hasn't confirmed whether or not it will do this, but there's no harm complaining if you've been adversely affected.

As always you can also take any gripe with your bank to the Financial Ombudsman Service if the bank hasn't responded within eight weeks, or you're unhappy with the response provided.

Or you can vote with your feet and switch provider. See our Best Bank Accounts guide for the top deals.