LONDON — Customers of Lloyds Banking Group are expressing shock and concern after a technical glitch allowed some users of its banking apps to see transactions belonging to other customers.
The issue affected mobile and online banking services for Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, which are all owned by Lloyds Banking Group. According to the BBC, some customers reported being able to view payments and charges that did not belong to them.
Lloyds Banking Group apologized for the incident and said the problem had been resolved and would be investigated, the BBC reported. The bank did not respond to the BBC’s questions about how many customers may have been affected.
One Halifax customer, Helen Jermy, told the BBC she saw numerous transactions she did not recognize in her account, including payments of £800,000 and £271,000. At one point, she said, her account appeared to show more than £1 million paid in.
Another customer, Stephanie Flynn of Aberdeen, told the BBC she went into a “blind panic” after seeing unfamiliar payments listed in her banking app.
‘I Didn’t Recognize Them’
“I didn’t recognize any of them and I just had no idea what was going on,” Flynn told the BBC.
A Bank of Scotland customer from Kirkcaldy, Scotland, who asked not to be identified, told the BBC she was able to view account details for six other users over about 20 minutes, including some National Insurance numbers. The BBC reported she also saw benefits payments from the Department for Work and Pensions, which uses National Insurance numbers as payment references.
Carl Lewis, a Lloyds Bank customer, told the BBC he was able to scroll through a full transaction history belonging to another account, including direct debit payments to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency that displayed vehicle registration numbers.
Other customers described similar concerns. Sam Harris told the BBC he saw nearly £3,000 deposited into an account he believed belonged to another person, while another customer, identified only as Asha, said she initially feared her own account had been hacked after seeing unfamiliar transactions.
‘Very Sorry This Happened’
According to the BBC, Lloyds Banking Group said in posts on social media that the issue had been quickly identified and resolved.
“This morning, we incorrectly showed transaction information from some accounts to other customers in Internet Banking and the mobile app,” the bank said in messages reported by the BBC. “We’re sorry this happened. This issue was quickly identified and resolved.”
Data from the outage-tracking website Downdetector showed a spike in reports of problems with the Lloyds and Halifax apps between 07:00 and 09:00 GMT, with a smaller spike affecting the Bank of Scotland app, the BBC reported.
Lloyds Banking Group said it is the United Kingdom’s largest retail and commercial banking provider, serving about 26 million customers, according to the BBC.
