Barclay Customers Face Panic with Third Day of Disruption

The PA agency believed the Barclay’s glitch could be a technical issue rather than a cyber attack.

Barclays customers, the second-largest bank in the United Kingdom, face a third-day disruption after a technical issue made it difficult to transfer money or make payments.

The glitch happened on the day of payday, which created panic for thousands of users and made online and mobile banking a hit. The bank stated that people could see an outdated balance with payments made or received not showing, and they are working to quickly fix it as soon as possible, and customers should not try to make that payment again.

The glitch started on January 31, 2025, which coincided with the day of payday and the last day for self-assessment tax returns, who will be fined £100 fines for those who miss the deadline.

The Press Association (PA) believed the glitch could be a technical issue rather than a cyber attack. Barclays did not reveal how many customers were affected by the glitch. However, the Down Detector website showed that around 1600 customers had been affected since Friday, hundreds of customers got disrupted with banking services, and money has gone missing.

Outrage tracker Down Detector has received thousands of reports of problems. More than half (52%) of them were issues related to mobile banking, 38% of them were related to Internet banking, and 10% had to do with bill payment.

Barclay’s status update website indicates that several essential services were down, like the Barclaycard app, Barclaycard Online Servicing, Barclays app, online banking, telephone banking, payments, and transfers.

Some people expressed their frustration on social media, stating that they did not have access to their own money to buy food and ended up starving their families.

Barclays advised customers on social media who faced challenges to access their money to get help from their friends or family or contact food banks for emergencies. They also gave links to a food bank website.

It was in response to a comment on X where a customer shared that their whole family uses a Barclay account. 

HMRC, the UK’s tax, payments, and customs authority, stated that they are working with Barclay to ensure that they can reduce the glitch impact on the customers.

A spokesperson stated that customers will be able to submit their returns on time since HMRC services are operating normally and late payment penalties do not apply until March 1, so customers do not have to worry about the issue since it would not result in a penalty.

According to Barclay, HMRC, with whom they are in direct contact, is aware of the technical problems with the Barclay.

They added that they would ensure that no customers are left out of pocket as a result of the payment delays.

Barclay added that consumers can instead use the app, internet banking, or their ATMs (automated teller machines), which are not affected. So, the customers can withdraw cash from them and use it to make payments. The company said it would notify its customers when the outstanding issues are resolved.

The company added that they would keep their call centres open for a few extra hours so that they could be available for customers who reach out in case of risk or vulnerability.

Barclay spent almost 24 hours on social media apologizing to all the frustrated customers for all the inconvenience caused by them. They apologized since the technical issue took longer than expected and thanked their customers for bearing with them. They did not mention when their essential services would return.

The bank advised the customers to be vigilant since fraudsters make use of such glitches to message their customers pretending to be Barclay.