Double glitch hits NatWest and Nationwide customers
Hundreds of thousands of Nationwide customers have transactions debited twice, and some NatWest customers are unable to withdraw cash, in the latest technical problems to hit financial institutions.
In a statement, Jenny Groves, divisional director for customer experience at Nationwide Building Society, said: “Nationwide wishes to apologise to those customers affected by an issue which has affected some of our debit card customers.
“Debit card transactions made on Tuesday 24 July were processed twice and affected 704,426 accounts (once on 24 July and once on 25 July) due to human error.
“The error, which came to light earlier today, will be corrected tonight. A small number of customers will have been adversely impacted, estimated to be less than 50,000.”
The building society promised none of its customers would suffer financial loss as a result of the blunder and that all charges will be refunded in full and any costs associated with the error will be reimbursed in full.
Nationwide said earlier this month that it had seen a 45 per cent increase in people transferring their main account to the society, including branch, online and telephone applications.
Meanwhile, only weeks after a major technical meltdown, thousands of people who bank through the part state-owned RBS Group – which runs NatWest, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank in Ireland – reported that they were experiencing difficulties this afternoon with online banking and credit cards.
Some customers who are abroad have reported that they are stranded without cash.
An RBS spokeswoman said: “Some of our customers are experiencing technical difficulties this afternoon with online banking and debit cards.
“We are working hard to resolve this and will provide an update as soon as possible.”