Online banking: Santander, HSBC and TSB customers report login issues and bank apps down - how do I fix it?

The banks are working hard at resolving the issues, which are believed to have been caused by internet providers
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Users of a number of online banking services have reported outages and unresponsive apps this morning (20 August).

Customers of Santander, HSBC, Natwest, Halifax, TSB, and First Direct have all been reporting issues with their services, which has seen many unable to access their bank accounts.

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“I keep getting the server not responding too in the mobile app yet it says mobile services are up,” wrote one customer on the website Down Detector, where people can report issues with various online services.

Another responded: “Server not responding to my online banking.”

So what should you do if you’re experiencing these issues? And what exactly is causing them?

Here is everything you need to know about it.

What have the banks said?

Santander tweeted that they are aware that a number of internet providers are experiencing issues, “meaning some customers are unable to access our online and mobile banking services.”

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“Debit cards, credit cards, ATMs, telephone and branch banking services are not affected, and customers can continue to use these services as normal.,” they said.

“We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. “

HSBC said their “online and mobile banking services are currently unavailable”, but that they are “working hard to fix this”.

The bank advises that customers check its Twitter feed for the latest updates.

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Natwest said that the problems could be related to what network provider customers are using.

At the time of writing Halifax, TSB and First Direct have not commented on reports of outages on their Twitter pages.

What’s causing the problems?

Though no source of the issues has been confirmed, anecdotal reports suggest the problem lies more with internet providers than the banks themselves.

Some have suggested that the issues may be born of a problem with Sky Broadband, which appears to be wrongly routing internet traffic so that some websites are not working.

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“Sky Broadband customers may be experiencing issues when trying to access some websites this morning,” said @SkyHelpTeam on Twitter.

“We're investigating this as a priority and we're sorry for any inconvenience.”

How can I fix the issue?

Why the cause of the issues is not known, there are a number of proposed fixes that you could try.

Some of the affected banks’ customer service teams have been pointing users towards their phones settings, which could help alleviate the issues.

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The banks’ customer services team are responding to customers suggesting they try their device settings.

Santander has recommended toggling from WiFi to 4G and back again may help the issue, and Natwest also said switching between different kinds of connections could help resolve the problem.

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