Santander’s telephone, branch, online and card services are all experiencing major issues, customers are reporting – and the bank has admitted it has no idea when they will be fixed.
Santander‘s mobile app and ATMs are also having problems and the bank has said that it is working to resolve the technical difficulties responsible.
Responding to a customer complaint on social media, it said it is “working hard” to fix the problem – but admitted “regrettably, we currently don’t have any timescales at the moment”.
First acknowledgment of the problems from Santander’s Twitter account came on Saturday morning.
A tweet said: “We’re currently aware of an issue affecting our services and we’re working hard to resolve the matter as soon as possible. We are sorry for any inconvenience.”
Follow-ups at around 2pm and 3pm said: “We’re sorry that a technical problem is affecting our services, our teams are working hard to fix it. You can access cash from other banks’ ATMs. Please check back here for further updates.”
Customers can also access cash “at the Post Office and can get cashback where that’s available”, Santander said.
Many are speculating on social media that planned maintenance, due to be carried out on the Santander mobile banking app overnight on Friday and confirmed on its website, is behind Saturday’s problems.
“We’re experiencing very high volumes of calls into our contact centres,” the company added.
It is unclear how many customers are affected.
Santander has around 14.3 million customers in the UK, according to its website, 6.3 million of whom use the bank’s digital services. Its mobile app is said to welcome 1,600 new active users per day.
In March, the company announced it is closing 111 branches due to customers’ preference for online banking.