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

Santander UK told the Treasury Committee of 24 occasions between January 2023 and January 2025 when at least one channel was unavailable, plus 8 of degraded service, and said there was no full bank outage. The longest lasted 645 minutes and hit corporate digital banking; the one that hit most customers, 258,792, lasted 248 minutes and stopped the app, online banking and Faster Payments. On 25 September 2026 some customers could not log on to internet banking or the app.

Is Santander down right now?

This page is a record, not a live monitor, so it cannot tell you whether Santander is working this minute. Santander's own service status page is the place to check. Santander shows the state of Mobile Banking, Online Banking, Telephone Banking, cash machines, branches and card payments on its service status page.

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 Santander outages

25 September 2026: Online banking and app outage

From mid-morning on Friday 25 September 2026 some Santander customers could not log on to internet banking or the app. Santander said customers were having "difficulties accessing some of our banking services". The website came back first and the app later. Santander did not give a cause.

6 March 2025: Mobile, telephone and card outage

On Thursday 6 March 2025 Santander's status page, as reported, showed problems with mobile banking, telephone banking, branch technology and card payments. Cash machines and online banking were available. The problems were fixed by the evening. Santander said "any customer financially impacted will not be left out of pocket".

Incidents Santander 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 Santander told Parliament

Santander UK was one of nine banks and building societies the Treasury Committee asked about IT failures. It reported 24 occasions between 1 January 2023 and 31 January 2025 when at least one channel was unavailable, and 8 occasions of degraded service. It said there was no full bank outage, most channel issues were resolved within 1.5 hours, and services were available 99.98% of the time for its 14 million customers. It gave the causes as application errors, hardware errors, third-party errors and problems during planned IT changes.

Santander's appendix gave no dates. Its longest incidents were 645 minutes on corporate digital banking and the corporate contact centre, for up to 12,995 customers; 527 minutes on cash machines, for 9,600; 357 minutes on Faster Payments, for 91,000; and 350 minutes on corporate digital banking, the corporate contact centre and Faster Payments, for 47,828. The incident that hit most customers, 258,792, lasted 248 minutes and stopped the retail and business app, online banking and Faster Payments.

By channel, Santander reported outage hours of 23 for corporate digital banking, 21.4 for Faster Payments, 13.3 for the retail app, 13.1 for the corporate contact centre, 9 for the business app, 8.8 for cash machines, 7.6 each for retail and business online banking, and 6.3 each for the retail contact centre and branches. Santander gave no single total. Adding the longest channel outage in each of the 24 incidents gives 3,863 minutes, about 64 hours.

Santander warned the Committee: "our response may not be comparable to other firms, given each bank will have their own method of recording and classifying the materiality and impact of incidents."

The Committee said the nine banks and building societies, Santander 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 Santander paid compensation for outages?

Santander UK paid about £17,000 to customers who complained about IT incidents between January 2023 and January 2025.

Santander told the Committee it "will automatically identify where payment outages lead to the loss of customer interest and will rectify customer accounts". It handles other impacts case by case.

After the 6 March 2025 outage Santander said "any customer financially impacted will not be left out of pocket".

Has Santander been fined for IT failures?

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

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 Santander down today?

This page records past outages and cannot show Santander's status this minute. Santander publishes live status at https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/customer-support/service-status. Santander shows the state of Mobile Banking, Online Banking, Telephone Banking, cash machines, branches and card payments on its service status page.

How often does Santander have outages?

Santander UK told the Treasury Committee of 24 occasions between January 2023 and January 2025 when at least one channel was unavailable, plus 8 of degraded service, and said there was no full bank outage. The longest lasted 645 minutes and hit corporate digital banking; the one that hit most customers, 258,792, lasted 248 minutes and stopped the app, online banking and Faster Payments. On 25 September 2026 some customers could not log on to internet banking or the app. In its latest published figures Santander reported 33 major operational or security incidents to the FCA in the 12 months to 30 June 2026.

When was the last big Santander outage?

25 September 2026: From mid-morning on Friday 25 September 2026 some Santander customers could not log on to internet banking or the app. Santander said customers were having "difficulties accessing some of our banking services". The website came back first and the app later. Santander did not give a cause.

Will Santander compensate me for an outage?

Santander UK paid about £17,000 to customers who complained about IT incidents between January 2023 and January 2025. 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 Santander 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: Santander'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, HSBC UK, Lloyds Bank, Metro Bank.