Barclays says balances will be updated: Here's what went wrong, who's affected, and when will it be fixed?

Barclays outage: Barclays has faced a serious technical problem over the past two days, which has left customers struggling to carry out even the most basic transactions such as making payments and transferring money. On Sunday, the company's status website stated that balances will be updated by the end of the day.

What's happening at Barclay?

According to outage tracking website Downdetector, there were over 4,000 users reporting problems with accessing Barclay's services, with around 52% of people saying they were having issues with mobile banking , 38% of people reporting issues with online banking and 10% of users having issues with bill payment.

According to the latest update on Barclays status update website, at least two critical functions of the bank — telephone banking and message us — are still not operational.

 There is no update on when these essential services will be back, but the website does state that customers can use their cards and withdraw cash.

The outage comes at a time when around 20 million of the Barclays' UK customers would have been hoping to cash their first pay cheque of the year while HMRC deadline for self assessment of tax return also nears.

Balances will be updated: Barclays

The latest information on the service status update website said that balances will be updated by the end of the day.

“We’re extremely sorry for the issues you've faced since Friday when using our services. Balances will be updated by the end of today - everything else is now back up and running. Our teams will be very busy helping customers. To save you waiting, please use our app, Online Banking and automated telephone service," reads the message.

Earlier, the message on the status website said, “Some customers may be experiencing issues making payments – we’re working to fix this as soon as we can. Your balance may be incorrect and some payments you made or are expecting to receive may not show. Please do not make the payments again. Please bear with us while we correct this.”

“We know some customers may be having issues trying to make a payment to HMRC ahead of the deadline for self-assessment tax returns. We’re in direct contact with HMRC, they are aware of the technical issues with our system and have confirmed today’s issues will not result in late-payment penalties, as they don’t apply until 1st March,” a company spokesperson was quoted by Financial Times as saying.

“We will ensure that no customer is left out of pocket because of delayed payments caused by this incident.” the company added.

What problems are Barclays' customers facing?

“I am in shock that the Barclays situation is NOT FIXED! we sold our house and because of this @BarclaysUKHelp. we cannot buy our house! Hence our whole house is in the moving van! I have 2 kids this is beyond belief heartbroken 💔 #BarclaysBank” wrote one user on X.

One user stated that there 4.7 million bank balance was showing as just 77 pence, they wrote, “Barclays Bank still not working after a full day. I hope you reimburse me the 4.7 million I had in my current account because right now it’s only showing 77 pence.”

“Anyone else’s #BarclaysBank down still? I genuinely have payments to make and waiting for two payments to clear and it’s not showing me my correct total balance” added another user

Meanwhile, some users also demanded compensation from Barclays, stating, "I SPEAK FOR MYSELF AND ALL BARCLAYS CUSTOMERS, WE DEMAND COMPENSATION!! It’s a Friday night I can’t even access the banking app, lets alone access my £££££ This is an utter shambles!!"