HSBC COO ‘profoundly apologises’ for online outage

Updated HSBC has pushed forward its chief operating officer to "profoundly apologise" for the online outage that began on Monday morning and which is continuing to cause havoc for millions of internet banking customers.

The bank's online banking for personal accounts continues to be out of action, with business banking running at a "significantly reduced capacity".

John Hackett, HSBC's UK COO, said the outage had been caused by a complex technical issue with its internet banking system. He said staff have been working "non stop" to fix the issue.

"This has involved many tests, diagnostics and trial runs. We are getting closer to solving the problem, but are not there yet. We can, however, confirm this is not a cyber attack, or any other malicious act," he said.

He asked for customers' patience with its call centre workers and branches, due to the current heavy volume of demand.

"Our customers continue to have issues with HSBC online and mobile banking," he said, adding that "we will ensure customers do not lose out as a result of this issue. Any fees customers incur as a result of this outage will be waived."

The bank has promised to provide regular updates. ®

Updated to add

As of 6pm GMT, an HSBC spokesperson says the problem has been fixed.