NatWest app went down for hours as customers vented frustration

The NatWest banking app stopped working for several hours on Sunday, as thousands of customers reported issues accessing the service.
Mobile banking users had been unable to access their accounts, while the UK bank’s social media channels told them there was “no timescale for a resolution”.
The service was down for around four hours, from 7.30am to 11am.
A NatWest spokesperson said: “We are aware that some of our customers experienced difficulties accessing NatWest mobile banking this morning. The issue has been resolved and customers are now able to log in as normal. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
Reports of log-in failures flooded the tech help site Down Detector from 8am, rising to more than 1,000 unhappy users.
The outage marks the second time this year that the mobile banking service went down. At the end of August, both Natwest and the Royal Bank of Scotland’s services crashed for a few hours.
Customers took to social media to complain, expressing outrage at being unable to manage their bank accounts. One user said: “Hi, NatWest app is down again. This is happening too frequently.”
Another added: “App not working… Get it sorted pronto NatWest. Also if down and has been for around 40 minutes, why have you failed to update the website?”
The bank responded with a back-up solution to unhappy customers: “If you need urgent access to your account you can try logging in to online banking on the website or calling the telephone team using the number on the back of your card.”
A recent service update from the bank advised customers that “routine maintenance” was due to take place between 2am and 6am on Sunday, meaning the mobile app “may be unavailable for periods during these times”.