Barclays to pay compensation over three-day IT outage
By Abigail Townsend
Date: Thursday 06 Mar 2025
(Sharecast News) - Barclays expects to pay out up to £7.5m in compensation, it emerged on Thursday, after an IT outage left customers without access to online banking for three days.
In a letter to the Treasury select committee, sent as part of an investigation into IT failures across high street lenders, chief executive Vim Maru confirmed that Barclays currently expects to pay out between £5m and £7.5m
He told committee chair Meg Hiller: "Barclays recognises the inconvenience and disruption this incident has caused our customers.
"We acknowledge that through no fault of their own, some of our customers and clients many suffered loss or distress and inconvenience."
Barclays' three-day outage, which started on the morning of 31 January 2025, left customers unable to log onto either apps or online banking, as well as hindering payments.
The timing was also particular difficult. January 31 is the deadline to make self-assessment tax payments to HM Revenue & Customs, as well as being payday for many.
According to the committee's research, over the last two years, nine of the UK's leading bank and building societies had more than 33 days of unplanned tech and systems outages between them, totalling 803 hours and at least 158 IT failures.
Barclays had 33 outages between January 2023 and February 2025, excluding the most recent incident, and has already paid nearly £5m in damages as result.
It means the blue chip could end up paying out a total of £12.5m to compensate for outages over the last two years.
HSBC suffered 32 outages during the period, while NatWest was hit by 13 incidents lasting 194 hours in total.
Meg Hillier MP, committee chair, said: "Losing access to banking services on payday can be a terrifying experience. Even when rectified relatively quickly, it can cause real panic, which is why we wanted to get a proper understanding of why unplanning banking outages happen.
"The fact there has been enough outages to fill a whole month within the last two years shows customers' frustrations are completely valid.
"The reality is that this data shows even the most successful banks and building societies hit technical glitches. What's critical is that they react swiftly and ensure customers are kept informed throughout."
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