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

TSB's worst outage was its 2018 IT migration: problems began when the new system went live on 22 April 2018, TSB did not return to business as usual until 10 December 2018, and regulators fined it £48.65 million. TSB told the Treasury Committee of 11 incidents between April 2023 and March 2025, with 35.5 hours of customer impact. That count left out a database fault on 28 February 2025 that made about 30% of log-in attempts fail.

Is TSB down right now?

This page is a record, not a live monitor, so it cannot tell you whether TSB is working this minute. TSB's own service status page is the place to check. TSB shows the state of internet, mobile, telephone and branch banking on its service status page, and told the Treasury Committee it also shares updates on its social media channels.

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 TSB outages

1 September 2025: App and internet banking outage

On the afternoon of Monday 1 September 2025 some TSB customers could not use the app or internet banking. Branches and telephone banking worked as normal. TSB said: "We're aware some customers are experiencing issues with our mobile banking app and internet banking." It did not give a cause.

28 February 2025: Payday database fault

From just after 7am on Friday 28 February 2025, a payday, TSB's mobile, web and interactive telephone banking were disrupted by "an issue with a database on what was a busy day for digital banking". About 30% of log-in attempts failed. Services were restarted at both data centres just after 8am and were back to normal at 2pm. Cards and cash machines worked. Up to 250,000 customers may have been affected. TSB received 464 complaints and paid £12,439 in redress.

22 April 2018: IT migration failure

TSB moved its customers onto Sabadell's Proteo4UK platform over the weekend of 20 to 22 April 2018. Serious problems began as soon as the system went live on 22 April 2018, hitting internet, mobile and telephone banking and branch systems, with knock-on payment and debit card problems and some data breaches. TSB did not return to business as usual until 10 December 2018. The FCA found the direct causes were "issues with IT configuration, capacity and coding". TSB received 225,492 complaints between 22 April 2018 and 7 April 2019.

Incidents TSB 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 TSB told Parliament

TSB was not one of the nine banks the Treasury Committee wrote to in February 2025. The Chair wrote to TSB separately on 8 April 2025 after its 28 February 2025 outage.

TSB reported 11 incidents to the FCA between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2025, with 35.5 hours of customer impact across channels. 8 hit digital channels and 3 affected payment processing only. On average about 32,000 customers were affected per incident. TSB gave the causes as hardware in 3 cases, capacity in 3, third-party supplier changes in 2, human error in 2 and database performance in 1. The 28 February 2025 outage did not meet the reporting threshold and is not among the 11. TSB spent £23 million on resilience in 2024, against £15 million in 2023.

TSB's annex listed the incidents by month. They included 7 hours in November 2023, when web and app access failed, cash machines were down and payments were delayed; 5.5 hours in October 2024, when retail customers could not use web or app banking and half of TSB's cash machines were down, with 1,545 complaints; 5 hours in September 2024 of delayed BACS payments, with 819 complaints; and 5 hours in June 2024, when web and app banking were unavailable and incoming payments were delayed.

Has TSB paid compensation for outages?

TSB paid £32,705,762 in redress for the 2018 migration between 22 April 2018 and 7 April 2019. This included £22.7 million for distress and inconvenience, £5.8 million for customer expenses and £1.2 million to put customers back in position. The most common payment was £150, made 49,910 times without proof of loss. 308 exceptional cases received £1,100 to £2,000.

TSB paid about £118,000 for loss and inconvenience across 3,934 complaints about its 11 reported incidents between April 2023 and March 2025. For the 28 February 2025 outage it paid £12,439, taking "a reactive approach to complaints".

Has TSB been fined for IT failures?

On 20 December 2022 the FCA and the PRA fined TSB £48.65 million in total, £69.5 million before discount, for operational resilience failings in its 2018 IT migration.

The FCA's share was £29.75 million, £42.5 million before a 30% settlement discount. It found TSB failed to organise and control the migration programme and to manage the risk of outsourcing to its critical third-party supplier.

The PRA's share was £18.9 million, £27 million before discount, for the same failure.

On 13 April 2023 the PRA fined Carlos Abarca, TSB's former chief information officer, £81,620, £116,600 before a 30% discount, for breaching Senior Manager Conduct Rule 2 over the migration between 7 March 2016 and 22 April 2018.

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 TSB down today?

This page records past outages and cannot show TSB's status this minute. TSB publishes live status at https://www.tsb.co.uk/help-and-support/service-message.html. TSB shows the state of internet, mobile, telephone and branch banking on its service status page, and told the Treasury Committee it also shares updates on its social media channels.

How often does TSB have outages?

TSB's worst outage was its 2018 IT migration: problems began when the new system went live on 22 April 2018, TSB did not return to business as usual until 10 December 2018, and regulators fined it £48.65 million. TSB told the Treasury Committee of 11 incidents between April 2023 and March 2025, with 35.5 hours of customer impact. That count left out a database fault on 28 February 2025 that made about 30% of log-in attempts fail. In its latest published figures TSB reported 3 major operational or security incidents to the FCA in the 12 months to 30 June 2026.

When was the last big TSB outage?

1 September 2025: On the afternoon of Monday 1 September 2025 some TSB customers could not use the app or internet banking. Branches and telephone banking worked as normal. TSB said: "We're aware some customers are experiencing issues with our mobile banking app and internet banking." It did not give a cause.

Will TSB compensate me for an outage?

TSB paid £32,705,762 in redress for the 2018 migration between 22 April 2018 and 7 April 2019. This included £22.7 million for distress and inconvenience, £5.8 million for customer expenses and £1.2 million to put customers back in position. The most common payment was £150, made 49,910 times without proof of loss. 308 exceptional cases received £1,100 to £2,000. 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 TSB 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: TSB'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.