Cahoot, Abbey National's new online bank crashed only hours after yesterday's launch and was only accessible intermittently throughout the day.

The online bank cost Abbey National £200 million to set up after much hyped investment in 'superior technology' that still failed on the day. The bank has so far had no explanation for the technical troubles, but there has been much speculation that unexpected interest overloaded the system.

Tim Murley, Cahoot's managing director told the Express 'This is certainly very embarrassing. We are putting our hands up and saying we got it wrong.' He also said he was not convinced that the problem was traffic volume.

But the good news is that because the system could not process applications as quickly as anticipated,there are still about 24,000 interest free overdraft accounts available for those not put off by yesterday's messy start.®