HSBC UK outages: history, compensation and how to check if HSBC UK is down

HSBC UK told the Treasury Committee of 32 incidents that disrupted its services between January 2023 and January 2025, 176 hours in all, including first direct. The worst was on Black Friday, 24 November 2023, when 1,620,000 customers could not use the app or web banking for 13.5 hours by HSBC's count; the BBC reported it lasted more than 24 hours. Since then HSBC UK has had an app and online banking outage of about 5 hours on 27 August 2025 and disruption during the Google Cloud outage of 20 October 2026.

Is HSBC UK down right now?

This page is a record, not a live monitor, so it cannot tell you whether HSBC UK is working this minute. HSBC UK's own service status page is the place to check. HSBC UK shows the status of nine services, including mobile, online and phone banking, card transactions and payments, on its service status page. That page links to its X account, @HSBC_UK.

During an outage your money stays in your account: outages stop you reaching it or paying with it, they do not remove it. The Financial Ombudsman Service lists scams that exploit outages among the complaints it sees, so be wary of calls or messages offering help during one.

Major HSBC UK outages

20 October 2026: Google Cloud outage

On 20 October 2026 HSBC UK was among the firms that confirmed disruption during an outage at Google Cloud's London region. HSBC said: "We are aware that some customers are experiencing difficulties accessing our services. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience and continue to monitor the situation, which is also affecting other organisations." HSBC did not name Google as the cause and did not say when its own services were back.

27 August 2025: App and online banking outage

From about 11am on Wednesday 27 August 2025 some HSBC UK customers could not reach their accounts through the app or online banking. Services were restored after about 5 hours. HSBC did not give a cause. It said: "We apologise to our customers who were impacted, and we'll continue to monitor systems closely."

28 June 2024: Payday login failure

On Friday 28 June 2024, a payday, HSBC UK retail customers could not log in to web and mobile banking for 2.5 hours, and payments were also affected. HSBC told the Treasury Committee that 330,000 customers were affected and gave the cause as "A combination of incompatible software versions and suboptimal server power setting degraded service availability". The same day a separate problem at a third party stopped business customers logging in to web and app banking for 2 hours, affecting 30,000 customers.

4 May 2024: DDoS attack

On 4 May 2024 HSBC UK retail customers could not log in to web and mobile banking for 6 hours. HSBC told the Treasury Committee the cause was a DDoS attack: "increased traffic created delays to customers being able to logon". It said 427,154 customers were affected.

20 February 2024: Business app login problems

On 20 February 2024 HSBC UK business customers had intermittent problems logging in to the mobile app for 7.5 hours. HSBC told the Treasury Committee the cause was "Failure of a key network component in a data centre" and that 101,453 customers were affected.

24 November 2023: Black Friday outage

On Friday 24 November 2023, Black Friday, HSBC UK retail customers could not use the app or web banking. HSBC told the Treasury Committee the outage lasted 13.5 hours and affected 1,620,000 customers. The BBC reported that it lasted more than 24 hours, into Saturday 25 November. HSBC gave the cause as "A combination of defects caused by a change in the mobile application, incompatible software versions and server settings". It was the only incident HSBC classed as an "IT failure" between January 2023 and January 2025, and HSBC paid £170,251 in compensation for it.

25 May 2023: Internet banking login problems

On 25 May 2023 HSBC UK retail and business customers had problems logging in to internet banking for 11.5 hours, and the app, cards and payments were also affected. HSBC told the Treasury Committee the cause was "An incompatible configuration change in the banking platform" and that 36,587 customers were affected.

4 November 2022: Friday evening outage

From about 8:30pm on Friday 4 November 2022 until shortly before midnight, HSBC UK personal and business customers had problems with mobile and online banking. Some customers reported that their cards were declined. HSBC did not give a cause.

19 December 2019: Two pre-Christmas faults

HSBC customers were hit by two unconnected faults on 19 and 20 December 2019, a payday for some. The first began just before 8pm on Thursday 19 December and was fixed about three hours later. The second struck overnight and caused intermittent problems on Friday. first direct customers were also hit. HSBC did not give a cause.

28 September 2018: Mobile app problems

On the morning of 28 September 2018 HSBC customers had trouble using the mobile banking app. HSBC said about 50% of mobile users had trouble connecting. It did not give a cause.

Incidents HSBC UK reported to the FCA

Since August 2018 every bank or brand with at least 70,000 personal current accounts, or 15,000 business current accounts, must publish each quarter how many major operational or security incidents it reported to the FCA: the total, and how many hit telephone, mobile and internet banking, for the latest quarter and the latest 12 months.

What HSBC UK told Parliament

HSBC UK, whose figures include first direct, told the Treasury Committee of one "IT failure" between 1 January 2023 and 31 January 2025: 13.5 hours on 24 November 2023, affecting 1,620,000 customers. It also reported 31 other incidents of degraded service totalling 162.5 hours. That makes 32 incidents and 176 hours, about 7.3 days. The other incidents affected 1,560,863 customers in aggregate, not counting each customer once.

HSBC UK gave the causes of its 31 other incidents as IT change errors 48%, hardware or network faults 23%, third-party suppliers 23% and DDoS attacks 6%. It said incidents reportable under PSD2 fell 20% over the two years.

The Treasury Committee said nine of the UK's top banks and building societies, HSBC UK among them, had at least 803 hours of unplanned outages, more than 33 days, from at least 158 IT failure incidents between January 2023 and February 2025.

Has HSBC UK paid compensation for outages?

HSBC UK told the Treasury Committee it paid £170,251 in compensation for the 24 November 2023 outage and £62,446 for its other incidents between January 2023 and January 2025, £232,697 in total.

After the December 2019 faults, City AM reported that HSBC committed to refund any overdraft fees customers incurred because they could not reach their accounts.

Has HSBC UK been fined for IT failures?

We found no FCA or PRA fine against HSBC UK Bank plc for an IT or operational-resilience failure.

In January 2024 the PRA fined HSBC Bank plc and HSBC UK Bank plc £57,417,500 for failures in identifying and notifying deposits eligible for FSCS protection. HSBC UK's failings ran from 2018 to 2021. This fine was not about an outage.

Your rights if an outage costs you money

No law sets a fixed amount of compensation for a bank outage. What you are owed depends on what it cost you, and banks decide most cases themselves.

If a payment you made fails or goes wrong, your bank must refund it without undue delay and put your account back as it would have been, and it is liable for any charges and interest you have to pay as a result. It is not liable if the failure was caused by abnormal and unforeseeable circumstances beyond its control that could not have been avoided.

The Financial Ombudsman Service says that when it upholds an outage complaint it can tell the bank to refund extra costs caused by the outage, such as overdraft or late-payment charges, and to pay for distress and inconvenience. In one case it published, a bank offered £25 after a multi-day outage and the Ombudsman told it to pay a further £75.

Complain to the bank first. For a complaint about a payment it must reply in full within 15 business days, or 35 in exceptional cases; for other complaints within eight weeks. You then have six months from its final response to take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge.

Frequently asked questions

Is HSBC UK down today?

This page records past outages and cannot show HSBC UK's status this minute. HSBC UK publishes live status at https://www.hsbc.co.uk/service-status/. HSBC UK shows the status of nine services, including mobile, online and phone banking, card transactions and payments, on its service status page. That page links to its X account, @HSBC_UK.

How often does HSBC UK have outages?

HSBC UK told the Treasury Committee of 32 incidents that disrupted its services between January 2023 and January 2025, 176 hours in all, including first direct. The worst was on Black Friday, 24 November 2023, when 1,620,000 customers could not use the app or web banking for 13.5 hours by HSBC's count; the BBC reported it lasted more than 24 hours. Since then HSBC UK has had an app and online banking outage of about 5 hours on 27 August 2025 and disruption during the Google Cloud outage of 20 October 2026. In its latest published figures HSBC UK reported 1 major operational or security incident to the FCA in the 12 months to 30 June 2026.

When was the last big HSBC UK outage?

20 October 2026: On 20 October 2026 HSBC UK was among the firms that confirmed disruption during an outage at Google Cloud's London region. HSBC said: "We are aware that some customers are experiencing difficulties accessing our services. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience and continue to monitor the situation, which is also affecting other organisations." HSBC did not name Google as the cause and did not say when its own services were back.

Will HSBC UK compensate me for an outage?

HSBC UK told the Treasury Committee it paid £170,251 in compensation for the 24 November 2023 outage and £62,446 for its other incidents between January 2023 and January 2025, £232,697 in total. If a payment failed or went wrong, your bank must refund it and is liable for the charges and interest that result. Beyond that there is no fixed amount: complain to the bank, and if you are unhappy with its answer the Financial Ombudsman Service can order it to refund costs and pay for distress and inconvenience.

How do I complain about a HSBC UK outage?

Complain to the bank first and keep evidence of any costs, such as late-payment or overdraft charges. It has 15 business days to answer a complaint about a payment and eight weeks for others. You then have six months to take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free.

More: HSBC UK's credit rating and safety record, outage figures for every UK bank, and outage histories for Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Chase UK, first direct, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, Metro Bank, Monzo.