Overview

• The outage began just after 5 am on July 31, affecting Lloyds Bank’s mobile app along with those of Halifax and Bank of Scotland and triggering about 780, 402 and 73 reports on DownDetector, respectively.
• Thousands of customers were unable to check balances or make payments on a key salary day, prompting frustration over missed bills and disrupted cash flow.
• Lloyds Banking Group acknowledged the issue on social media, advising affected users to try online banking, phone services or visit branches while engineers work on a fix.
• Regulators introduced new FCA operational resilience rules in March 2025 after recurring payday outages across major banks, aiming to mandate faster recovery and bolster digital defenses.
• Data shows at least 158 unplanned IT failures hit nine leading UK banks from January 2023 to February 2025, often linked to third-party supplier problems, software updates or internal malfunctions.