Santander and its digital arm Cahoot reported the highest number of IT outages among 21 leading UK banks and building societies between April 2025 and March 2026, with a total of 38 incidents. Lloyds Bank followed with 22 reported incidents, and Bank of Scotland and Halifax each recorded 20.
These figures are based on an analysis of bank data collated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Santander stated that its services were available to retail customers 99.96% of the time since April 2025, and not all incidents affected customers' ability to access banking services. The bank also noted that since 2018, the average resolution time for issues has been under three hours.
A June survey found that a quarter of UK adults with a current or savings account had been impacted by a banking IT outage within the past five years. Issues reported included being unable to access accounts or make payments digitally or in person.
The Treasury Committee's 2025 report indicated that nine top banks and building societies accumulated 33 days of unplanned systems outages in the two years prior. NatWest experienced 13 outages between January 2023 and January 2025, lasting a total of 194 hours, while Barclays had the most outages (33) in the same period, with 15 affecting customers for 93 hours.
Banks are working with the Bank of England, the FCA, and UK Finance to reduce incidents, focusing on upgrading systems and building resilience. Third-party failures accounted for 19% of cyberincidents reported to the FCA between January 1 and July 9, 2026.