WorldPay - the Royal Bank of Scotland's Internet payment outfit - appears to have been floored by a malicious attack.

The site fell over just before 8.00am this morning and hasn't been seen since.

Detail are still sketchy and the full extent of the problem is not yet known.

However, the company has just issued the following statement: "There has been today a coordinated effort by a third party to prevent our customers from accessing the WorldPay system.

"This was detected automatically within a minute of its occurrence and work was immediately begun to address the issue.

"Most regrettably, the consequences of this are that customers have found our services unobtainable and we have also been unable to contact customers via email to inform them of the situation.

"We continue to work urgently to rectify these issues.

"We apologise for the impact this is clearly having on our customers. We are doing everything we can to restore full service as soon as possible," it said.

At the moment WorldPay has no idea when the service will be up and running again. ®