HUNDREDS of Santander customers have been left unable to make payments due to an outage that started earlier this afternoon.
Over 600 customers have reported problems with the high street bank’s services on the outage-tracking website Downdetector.
It’s understood that the issue is impacting both business and personal accounts[/caption]
Over 68% of the issues reported related to customers reporting that they are unable to make instant payments.
A further 17% report that they can’t make card payments either.
The outage comes just hours after the Treasury Committee released its findings on the scale of recent IT failures.
The committee – a cross-party group formed of 11 members – asked the lenders’ UK chief executives to reveal the scale of recent IT failures and estimates for how much customers might be paid in compensation.
A letter to the committee from Barclays’ chief executive, Vim Maru, revealed that the bank could potentially pay up to £12.5million in compensation to customers impacted by its service outages.
How do I claim compensation after an outage if I’m left out of pocket?
Banks are not obligated to provide compensation to customers for service disruptions in the same way telecom companies are.
However, if you have incurred additional costs directly as a result of a service issue, you may be entitled to reimbursement.
For example, if a bill payment fails to go through due to an outage and you are charged a late payment fee, you should be able to claim that money back.
Similarly, if your credit rating is impacted or you are penalised with late payment fees because a transaction could not be completed, it’s important to keep a record of these incidents.
Banks will generally assess claims on a case-by-case basis, taking into account individual circumstances.
However, if you’ve been impacted you should lodge a formal complaint.
To do this, contact your bank and provide a detailed record of all instances where you faced additional costs, charges, or fees as a direct result of the service disruption.
This could include photocopies of bank statements showing missed payments, receipts, invoices, or other evidence of expenses incurred.
For more specific guidance, you can visit your bank’s complaints page.
If you are unhappy with the compensation offered you have the option to escalate your complaint.
This can involve taking your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which offers an impartial review of disputes between customers and financial institutions.
The FOS can usually get involved 15 days after you first raised concerns with the bank.
For IT system outages at a bank, the FOS says the compensation depends on your situation and if you lost out as a result.
But if it thinks your bank has done something wrong and treated you unfairly, the FOS can ask it to put things right on your behalf.
It could include telling the bank to pay compensation to:
- Make sure you do not end up out of pocket
- Recognise the inconvenience and trouble you’ve been through
It can also tell the bank to take steps to ensure you’ve not lost out any other way – for example by telling it to correct your credit file.
To launch a complaint with the FOS, visit financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/how-to-complain.
