HSBC customers in UK hit by “hardware failure”

PanARMENIAN.Net - UK customers of banking giant HSBC were left unable to withdraw money or make card payments as a result of a server glitch on May 20, The Telegraph reported.

Account holders complained that they were left embarrassed after being unable to pay for goods and services and demanded compensation.

Last night the bank responded to complaints on its official Twitter feed by saying it was “really sorry” about the problems.

Later it said: “Our ATMs should be back up now. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

HSBC said the problems had been the result of a “hardware failure” in the UK.

It appeared that over a two-hour period HSBC customers using some non-HSBC machines had been unable to withdraw cash.

For a slightly longer period, some had also been unable to carry out card transactions but for most, a back-up system meant they went through, the bank said.

Last night a spokesman for HSBC said: “For a short period of time this evening, an IT hardware failure which supported some ATM and debit card transactions meant that a small minority of HSBC customers were unable to withdraw cash or pay for goods.

“We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to customers, we have worked as quickly as possible to restore our service and both are now available again.”

Last November, another computer crash saw millions of HSBC customers lose access to their money as internet accounts, cash points and debit cards stopped working. A previous outage took place in 2006 when a “server issue” meant computers were failing to verify the identity of card users.