Metro Bank customers see red after IT glitch empties accounts

Metro Bank customers have spoken of their distress after an IT glitch left them unable to make payments and in some cases plunged their accounts into the red.

While the bank said it had fixed the “short delay affecting inbound and outbound payments”, hours later customers were still complaining about problems, including duplicate payments and seeing an unexpected “minus balance”.

“We all deserve compensation!,” said Colleen in post on X, claiming that people had missed work and were having to go without food and other essentials.

Emily Gregory said in a Facebook post: “They’ve taken money for things I’ve bought but then duplicated those charges … I have no overdraft so how am I supposed to buy anything now?”

During the outage, customers were greeted with a message on the bank’s service status webpage, stating: “Our payment services are currently unavailable. We’re working to fix the problem and have them up and running as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you.”

The Downdetector outage website showed an increase in issues being reported between about 8am and 10am on Tuesday. However, Metro Bank customers were reporting unresolved issues well into the afternoon.

On X, Tanya Pegler posted: “So when is this being sorted as u need food and nappies in for my kids and can’t do nothing right now its beyond a joke it was said earlier its fixed no it isn’t.”

In another Facebook thread, Leah Lovena Cairnie said: “Metro Bank this is not okay. Many of us have woken up today to negative balances and missing funds. I’ve seen someone post they’ve woken up to minus £7,000, and personally I’ve woken up to -£500. We’re not just account numbers we’re real people, with families, emotions, and responsibilities.”

Common complaints included unauthorised overdrafts, while others reported duplicate payments on their digital banking. Others were upset because they could not pay for travel to or from work or make important payments, such as rent.

In a statement, Metro Bank apologised to customers for the disruption. “We experienced a short delay affecting inbound and outbound payments earlier this morning. This was resolved and customers can currently make payments as usual.”

It added: “Some customers may see delays while we process these earlier payments, we are prioritising this and working hard to minimise impact. We apologise for any inconvenience.

“Some customers may see delays while we process these earlier payments and balances may still be showing inaccurately. We are prioritising this and working hard to minimise impact.”

Banks’ IT systems have come under increased scrutiny this year because of a run of IT failures at banks and building societies. In the summer NatWest had to apologise to millions of it customers after they were locked out of its app. There have also been incidents at Santander and Barclays.