Abbey National's business banking service went down twice on Monday. The glitch left anbusiness.com customers unable to make transactions online and, in at least one case, unable to carry out transactions over the phone either.

Gary Hinson, chief exec of security governance consultancy IsecT, was left frustrated by his inability to access his business account either over the phone or online. He couldn't pay bills, check money coming into his account or make salary payment. The latest SNAFU follows similar problems with anbusiness last Monday (4 July) that weren't resolved until the following day. "I've given up and am looking for a new bank. A bank that doesn't let its customers conduct any transactions will not remain in business for long," Hinson told El Reg.

An Abbey National spokeswoman said that the site was down between 0830 and 1245 on Monday. The site was brought back up by 1245 but went down again after two hours (1445) and remained unavailable for the rest of the afternoon. She blamed technical issues, which its technicians are working hard to resolve, for problems with the site. The exact cause of the problem remains unclear but Abbey has ruled out hacker attack. ®

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