Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland back after online banking outage

Lloyds Banking Group says its services are now back online, after thousands of customers experienced problems accessing online banking.

A spokesperson for the bank giant said on Wednesday afternoon: "All our services are back up and running."

"We are sorry for the inconvenience caused, and if customers are still experiencing any issues, please leave it a few minutes and try again."

Lloyds Banking Group says it is the UK's largest retail and commercial banking provider, with 26 million customers across Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland.

According to online outage tracker Downdetector, users started reporting problems at around 1115 BST.

Thousands of people reported problems across the three banks owned by the group.

A spokesperson for the bank giant said earlier on Wednesday: "We're aware some customers are having issues with our app and online banking. We're really sorry about this, and we're working hard to fix it."

In response to a customer reporting they could not access their account, Halifax posted on X: "Some customers are having issues with accessing our Mobile App right now. Bear with us as we fix this."

In a message on the Lloyds app, the bank said: "Sorry, we're having a few technical problems. Logging in again may fix the issue, but if this doesn't help, please try again later."

It showed a 503 error message, which indicates a server is not ready to handle requests.

In March, almost half a million Lloyds Banking Group customers saw other people's transactions or had their own data shared after an IT glitch.