What to do if your banking app goes down

A major Amazon Web Services outage has disrupted online and mobile banking

A service outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) this morning caused widespread disruption, taking down millions of major apps and websites – including HMRC, Snapchat and Duolingo.

As the world’s largest cloud computing provider, AWS underpins many online platforms through its storage and database services. The issue has also affected some of the UK’s biggest banks under the Lloyds Banking Group umbrella, leaving many customers unable to access mobile or online banking.

Here, Which? explains which banks were affected, what’s behind the rise in outages, and what to do if you’re impacted.

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Which banks are affected by the latest outage?

Lloyds Banking Group confirmed that AWS issues caused outages across Lloyds Bank, Halifax and the Bank of Scotland. 

In a post to X, the group said: ‘You may have seen reports of issues with Amazon Web Services affecting a number of websites and apps across the UK today. We know this is impacting some of our services right now. We're sorry about this. Please bear with us as we investigate this.’

In an updated statement, the banking group confirmed that some of its services had since come back online, although not all services had been restored. 

While services are being restored, Which? is warning consumers to remain vigilant. Scammers often exploit confusion during outages by sending fake emails or texts claiming to be from banks or companies like Amazon. 

Why are these outages becoming more common?

Service disruptions are nothing new, but large-scale outages like this, where multiple apps and websites are hit simultaneously, are becoming more frequent. That’s because so many companies now rely on the same cloud providers, meaning a single fault can ripple across hundreds of services.

According to a Treasury Committee report, customers of the UK’s major banks and building societies suffered the equivalent of more than a month of IT failures between January 2023 and February 2025.

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4 steps to take if you experience a bank outage

If you are affected by a banking outage, you should follow these steps: 

1. Contact your bank

If you can, go to your local bank branch – especially if you urgently need to access your money. If you don’t have a local bank branch nearby or transport to get to it, try and call your bank and ask for its guidance on what to do. 

That's assuming telephone banking isn't also down. If that's the case, or lines are busy, try contacting your bank on social media to ask what to do. But don’t ever share your account details over social media.

2. Gather evidence

If your bank cannot fix the issue or does not respond to you, then you should start gathering all the evidence you need for a formal complaint. This evidence should include:

  • Financial records: Statements showing any charges or fees directly resulting from the problem. You can also include receipts such as bus tickets/petrol receipts if you had to travel to a branch.
  • Proof of contact: Emails, logs or social media posts proving you contacted your bank when the issue arose. Include all forms of contact across the outage. 
  • Impact documents: This includes things such as your credit score if negatively hit due to missed payments.

Find out more: bank branch closures: is your local bank closing?

3. Complain to your bank

Complain to the bank and ask for compensation to cover the losses and ask it to take all the steps to put the situation right.

In your complaint, make sure you include:

  • Who you spoke to at the bank during the outage – include when you spoke to them and what they advised you to do.
  • The losses you suffered as a result of the outage – include the service you wanted to perform, what happened to you as a result and any financial and emotional distress this caused you.
  • What you want the bank to do to put things right – include the amount of compensation you expect and when you expect to be compensated.

4. Complain to the FOS

If you are unhappy with how your bank dealt with the problem, you can contact the FOS which has official powers to help customers solve problems with their banks when they can’t agree. 

The FOS will look at the facts, ask questions and make a decision on the fairest course of action. The Ombudsman can order a bank to pay compensation if it finds the customer was treated unfairly or was left out of pocket. 

The FOS can also tell the bank to take steps to make sure you’ve not lost out any other way – for example, by telling them to correct your credit file. The FOS can usually get involved 15 days after you’ve raised your concerns with the bank – but sometimes it can be even sooner.

key information

Compensation for bank outages

Banks aren't legally required to pay compensation just because they experience an outage or technical issue. The system for banking companies differs from that of the telecoms industry, where compensation is due for loss of services like broadband.

However, you may be entitled to a payout depending on the extent to which the disruption negatively affected you. 

This can include missing bill payments that result in late payment fees or overdraft fees due to the outage, as well as a negative impact on your credit score. The amount of compensation will depend on how you were impacted by the outage.