Black Friday 'ruined' by NatWest banking outage, customers complain, after it leaves them unable to access accounts

Black Friday was "ruined" by a Natwest banking outage, customers have complained after being unable to access their bank accounts.

On what was also payday for some people being the last Friday of the month, some also said that money they had transferred between accounts appeared to have vanished.

Online banking and mobile banking was down all day, with people unable to make large purchases and businesses affected.

Philippa Smith wrote on Twitter: "Supposed to sell our flat and buy a house today, our solicitor banks with NatWest.

"When will this be sorted? Packed up and nowhere to go."

Another Twitter user, Janine Daniels, wrote: "Money missing from my savings now after a failed transfer sitting in the hairdressers can’t pay for my hair absolutely appalling. Had many Black Friday deals I had planned to buy my children now out of stock absolutely disgusting".

Another, Helen, wrote: "Well that's one way of making sure I don't spend to much on Black Friday, stop me being able to access my money. Thanks Nat West"

Brandon Leigh, from south Manchester, told Sky News the NatWest failure has impacted his business.

He runs a first-aid training business and planned to buy 36 mannequins and equipment at a 20 per cent Black Friday discount.

He told Sky News: "For me, it's a big saving. We went to the supplier but I can't pay them. It's terrible, I need them.

"I rang NatWest and was held in a queue for ages. They said they are working on the problems and it would be sorted, but not in the next hour or two. I can't get in the mobile app, or internet banking."

The RBS Group said in a statement: "We are aware that some customers are experiencing intermittent issues accessing our mobile and online banking.

"We apologise to customers for the inconvenience and are working hard to fix the problem. There is no impact on debit cards, credit cards, ATMs, telephone and branch banking services - customers can continue to access these as normal."

Research from Which? released earlier this week found the banking industry suffers around five IT failures each week typically, shutting millions of customers out of accounts and making payments.

Which? found that over the past year, major UK banks suffered 265 IT shutdowns between them that prevented customers from making payments.

TSB recently apologised to its customers after some account holders were left without their salaries as the bank failed to process overnight payments.

Last year, a major IT meltdown left TSB customers without access to services and dragged on for months.