The one where the Lloyds Banking Group suffered downtime

In a world where we are so reliant on technology for everything, from doing our weekly grocery shopping to online banking, it’s no surprise that when something goes wrong, it has a huge domino effect impact. The pressures on apps and online platforms in 2022 is so high that we almost solely depend on them for all of our day to day activities. It’s no surprise, therefore, that when the banking apps suffered partial downtime in March, it felt like Armageddon. 

Let’s set the scene a bit here.

When was the last time you popped into a Lloyds bank and transferred money to someone? Or, when was the last time you deposited cash to a cashier in a NatWest branch? I can almost hear your brain whirring from here, trying to figure out when this nostalgic moment last took place. But if I was now to ask you when was the last time you logged into your online banking app, I’m sure the answer would be almost automatic. So what happened when you couldn’t?

It’s estimated that over 18 million people in the UK use online banking. So when the Lloyds, Halifax, and the Bank of Scotland online banking platforms all suffered partial downtime, millions of people were unable to access their accounts properly. The biggest downside? All 3 of these banks are managed by the Lloyds Banking Group. And the most worrying part for customers was seeing “N/A” against their “available funds”. Scary.

It took Lloyds a while to release a statement about the issue, which seemingly came after the influx of comments on social media directed at them. A spokesperson then released the following:

‘We know some of our customers had issues accessing mobile and online banking for a short time this morning.

‘We’re sorry about this and both our website and app are now back to normal.’

What caused the downtime?

Lloyds Banking Group hasn’t released any information about why their online banking platforms went down or what caused it but with such a tremendous amount of reliance now on them, it bodes the question, should they be doing more to make sure this doesn’t happen? 

According to the banking group, online banking use has gone up over 25% in the past two years so with this added usage, you’d need excellent website monitoring in place to ensure that any downtime is picked up as quickly as possible. 

The solution? Enter StatusCake (bet you didn’t see that coming!). We will monitor your website for uptime, page speed, server, domain, and any SSL issues so you can always have the best performing website possible. The cherry on the cake is you can take a free trial of our paid plans or enjoy a free for life account. Almost sounds too good to be true. Why not try it?