Santander customers are reporting issues with mobile and online banking making them unable to access their bank accounts.

The disruption was caused by a technical fault and remains unsolved at the time of writing.  

The problems began early on Friday morning and now almost 700 customers have experienced the issues when trying to access their account.

Although the website seems to be working well, 98% of issues reported relate to mobile banking and internet banking.

According to Downdetector, customers in London and the south west are affected most, while customers in Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are also reporting problems.

Customers have taken to social media to complain about the service which has left them locked out of their accounts.

One social media user said: “Santander is down for me, online and on app...”

A second added: “Typical pay day and santander Is down!!!”

A third asked the bank: "What is going on with your app I can't get on it.

“It keeps saying session timed out without even letting me on?"

A lot of customers are reporting a “session timed out” message.

Halifax and TSB customers report problems

Meanwhile customers at Halifax and TSB are also reporting problems.

Halifax customers have reported receiving an error message which states: "Can’t connect to HSBC network and check your device settings" when trying to use the bank’s mobile banking app.

TSB customers have also reported an outage.

One customer tweeted: @TSB argh your app is down again. Need to transfer money from my savings.

Santander, NatWest and TSB issue advice to customers

Santander regularly asks for queries to be sent to their team on the Santander UK Help Twitter account. This morning the account has received tweets from concerned customers.

They initially replied suggesting customers try switching from Wi-fi to their mobile data or uninstalling the app and reinstalling it.

Some people replied saying the methods worked for them.

Since then, Santander has tweeted confirming that there is an issue and has said it is because “a number of internet providers are experiencing issues.”

They said the issue won’t affect their customers’ “debit cards, credit cards, ATMs, telephone and branch banking services.”

TSB has also confirmed the issue relates to internet providers being down and they apologised to their customers for the inconvenience.

They have promised to update customers as soon as possible.

NatWest acknowledges online banking app problems

NatWest has also acknowledged the issues by replying to customers’ tweets, offering a solution similar to Santander’s.

In one reply they said: “We are aware some customers are having issues accessing the service when doing so via certain network providers.”

They added: “Can you please try this again using your mobile data as a hot spot or using a different connection and let me know if you can gain access to the service?”