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Bank Tech Outages: Santander Struggles as Digital Banks Face Scrutiny
London, November 21, 2023 – A wave of technology outages continues to plague the UK banking sector, raising concerns about the reliability of both customary lenders and rapidly growing fintech companies. Recent data highlights ongoing issues at major banks like Santander, while even digital disruptors like Monzo have experienced disruptions.
In March 2023,Santander faced a meaningful outage that prevented users from making payments. Data submitted to the Treasury Select Committee revealed that Santander experienced 116 hours of downtime in the preceding two years, ranking it third behind NatWest (194 hours) and HSBC (176 hours). https://www.cityam.com/santander-hit-by-major-outage-leaving-customers-unable-to-make-payments/
The outages have prompted customer shifts. While the original text mentioned Monzo gaining nearly 10,000 switchers, more recent data shows a significant increase in Monzo’s customer base. As of August 2023, Monzo had over 9 million customers, a substantial gain in recent years. https://www.monzo.com/about/ However,Monzo hasn’t been immune to technical issues. In early November 2023, Monzo customers reported disruptions that impacted the app’s functionality. https://www.cityam.com/monzo-outage-hits-app-as-digital-bank-wobbles/
The broader banking sector has been vulnerable.Lloyds Banking Group was affected by a major incident in December 2022 stemming from issues with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which impacted a wide range of online services. https://www.cityam.com/zoom-slack-coinbase-all-down-heres-every-service-affected-by-amazon-outage/ This incident underscored the reliance of financial institutions on third-party cloud providers.
A 2023 report by the Treasury committee highlighted that UK banks were collectively offline for a total of 31 days over a two-year period. Barclays has estimated it may need to pay up to £7.5 million in compensation to customers following a three-day outage in early 2023. https://www.cityam.com/mps-grill-barclays-on-outages-as-hsbc-raises-cyber-attack-concerns/
These recurring outages are forcing banks to invest heavily in upgrading their technology infrastructure and bolstering their cybersecurity defenses. The pressure is on to ensure reliable service as customers increasingly rely on digital banking channels.
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