back to article HSBC online customers still in the cold after hours-long lockout

HSBC has apologised for an online banking outage which left customers unable to access their accounts. In a tweet, the company said: "We are working hard to fix the issue with our Online & Mobile Banking service. Follow us for further updates. Sorry for any inconvenience." The problem appears to have started this morning with …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its the customers own fault if the error message is to be believed.....

    Internal Server Error

    The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

    Please contact the server administrator, you@your.address and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

    More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

  2. JaitcH
    WTF?

    Just say ...

    you are valued customer from Mexico and HSBC will leap into action.

    HSBC keeps all it's central computers in the States - New Jersey is their landing point - and they service ATMs all over the world from there. So much for being called a 'British' bank.

    1. djack

      Re: Just say ...

      "So much for being called a 'British' bank."

      When did it ever claim to be British? Surely the clue is in the name ...

      Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

      1. Archaon

        Re: Just say ...

        Not to mention that they used to advertise as 'The World's Local Bank', which was intended to show a worldwide presence with local knowledge/service.. If they were claiming to be a British bank then surely the tag line would have been 'The Local Local Bank'?

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. sysconfig

            @1980s_coder Re: Just say ...

            "Then HSBC were unable to tell me why my VISA card was rejected [...]"

            That's precisely the reason why I got myself an AMEX. HSBC's "fraud detection" seems to be triggered at random. Even if you make regular payments on a monthly basis of the same amount, at the same date, to the same merchant, payments can still eventually end up being flagged as fraudulent and you have to call them to get the card unblocked. Bloody stupid, and quite embarassing if you encounter that in a bricks&mortar store somewhere. Of course HSBC wouldn't get in touch immediately, but give you a call a day or two later.

            AMEX on the other hand let the payment go through first, then give you a call immediately afterwards, if they have any concerns. Much better service.

          2. Cabeca Branca

            Re: Just say ...

            I gave up using Amex in Brasil as unless it is an Amex(Brasil) card it was very rarely accepted. My HSBC cards generally work OK, but attract a hefty charge when withdrawing cash from HSBC cash machines. HSBC Brasil is (was) a separate company, a franchise more or less. Trying to transfer cash from HSBC/UK to HSBC/Brasil is a nightmare, though that is more Brasil than HSBC. HSBC is now pulling out of Brasil and has sold its whole operation to a local bank (Bradesco I think)

      2. BagOfSpanners

        Re: Just say ...

        I still think of them sometimes as the Midland Bank, although I threw away my free Griffin Savers school bag some time ago.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just say ...

      They're in the north of the UK actually, AC for obvious reasons...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just say ...

      "HSBC keeps all it's central computers in the States"

      No it doesn't. There are other data centres in other countries. To take just one example, the largest data centre in Asia is HSBC's HK facility "The data centre operates uninterrupted 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, to meet current and foreseeable future business needs for more than 20 countries and 60 locations."

      1. Dominion

        Re: Just say ...

        24 hours per day, 365 days per year

        It's a shame 2016 is a leap year with 366 days!

  3. tiggity Silver badge

    A story mainly populated by a few random tweets, a sign of the bold, new rebranding?

    Still an interesting insight into a sort of parallel universe, as I'm still bemused by @Niffer62 tweet

    "Nighmare. No mobile or online banking services for over an hour now"

    I obviously need either a better imagination or the ability to over-react to the slightest thing as lack of online banking for over an hour does not exactly conjure up a nightmare scenario for me.

    1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge
      FAIL

      That's because "Bills to pay"! Probably never heard of Direct Debits or Standing Orders and procrastinated until the very last day to pay what's due.

      1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge

        Next Twit complaint will be the battery on their bank card reader decides to die after asking to be replaced with new batteries for months

      2. ~chrisw

        Considering most people don't even earn any interest on their HSBC current accounts, the least they should expect from their bank is online banking available during business hours.

        The lack of constructive communication from HSBC is what made it worse than the outage.

    2. AceRimmer

      "I obviously need either a better imagination or the ability to over-react to the slightest thing as lack of online banking for over an hour does not exactly conjure up a nightmare scenario for me."

      First working day of the month after a long weekend and a generally expensive festive period, A lot of people would have been nervously checking their bank accounts yesterday to check if they are still solvent.

      For people who for one reason or another rely solely on a single card/account then it will be a major issue for them.

  4. Blitheringeejit

    Seems that the nightmare is over ...

    ...and banking services are restored. Phew. Now we just need world peace and a solution to climate change and all will be rosy in the garden.

    1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Seems that the nightmare is over ...

      I still get the "Personal Internet Banking is currently unavailable, please try again later" @4.23 GMT.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's the grumpy old man again! First he was disappointed by Local Authorities spending differing amounts on Oracle licenses (what you mean some Councils use more Oracle products than others?).

    Now it appears he's also an HSBC customer! Will his bad luck ever end?

    1. noboard
      Coat

      "Now it appears he's also an HSBC customer! Will his bad luck ever end?"

      Just as soon as his application for a Natwest business account is accepted.

  6. Simon 4

    There's an app for that...

    The app on my iPad says that "Sorry, our mobile application is currently unavailable".

    But it's working fine so far as I can tell - I just used it to check my balance. And I've been using it all day, while Internet banking has been unavailable.

    So the web interface for Internet banking may be borked, but working fine with the iOS app.

    1. Camilla Smythe

      Re: There's an app for that...

      Cough... Perhaps your non-borked banking is different from everyone else's because someone else, other than HSBC, is keeping a watchful eye over your account?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. david willis

    There might be an app :- But

    The website is STILL broken..

    1. Tony S

      Re: There might be an app :- But

      I can confirm that having tested it several times this morning in different browsers and via different connections; also tried the app, but that seems to have a problem as well.

      Having said that, managed to get money from an ATM; almost everything is paid by SO or DD, so they've got a few weeks to sort it out before it becomes an issue for me. Just inconvenient is all.

      But there will be others that could be in much more difficult circumstances; feel sorry for them and hope that HSBC will do the right thing and make sure that no-one gets charged (or gets refunded) if they end up getting slapped with penalties.

      Not surprisingly, the telephone banking service line is mega busy; but their staff are doing their best under difficult conditions

      1. david willis

        Re: There might be an app :- But

        Yes I noticed browser weirdness last night. I couldn't get on to the website from my iMac using Safari or Chrome, but did get on several times using Safari on my iPad. Then that stopped working. The app seemed hit and miss last night too. Haven't tried the app this morning.

      2. STZ

        Re: There might be an app :- But

        Great that you managed to withdraw some cash via an ATM. But this is not too surprising: ATM's are typically served via a separate channel - which is running on older, but more reliable infrastructure ...

        Now, many folks want to get rid of good old cash and want to go for mobile payments only. Good luck - even when your bank's website is working fine, you may feel very poor when the battery in your mobile is dead ...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A local bank for local people...?

  9. PeterM42

    You could all save a lot of trouble.......

    ......by switching to Santander. Don't get problems with their online banking.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You could all save a lot of trouble.......

      I'm not having any problems with HSBC online ban .... oh, hang on.

      Yep, still unavailable and nobody at HSBC seems to have a bloody clue what's going on, and the same tweet copy and pasted every few hours or so isn't what I'd call communication, either.

    2. AceRimmer

      Re: You could all save a lot of trouble.......

      "......by switching to Santander. Don't get problems with their online banking."

      yet

      As any bank will tell you: Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Should be working now, but call gapping still in use, so may take a few attempts to log on (I had to try twice to use the mobile app).

  11. Yugguy

    2 days offline???

    Sorry but that is SHIT.

    I work for a financial institution and there is simply no way we would allow a customer facing outage of that length that was caused by an internal issue.

    I know as I'm the one oncall if our external web site, internal sales system or internet banking goes down. The stuff that actually makes us the money. If I can't fix any of these within the hour I escalate and everyone jumps in. The longest outage we've had on our external website is 2 hours.

    1. downhome

      Re: 2 days offline???

      SHIT?

      Call the Software and Hardware Incident Team.

  12. downhome

    HSBC - Hardware and Software Becoming Creaky?

    Still unavailable via the website at 15:25 Tuesday 5th.

    Mind you, we have just entered a leap year....

  13. downhome

    18:55 - It's back and working for me

  14. M man

    Server outage (slow) tending to mean ddos,

    way to many ddos tend to be infiltration cover for data theft.

    way to much stolen data isnt encrypted or protected properly.

    this 5hit is making me paranoid.

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