Thousands of customers faced account access issues on payday due to technical difficulties affecting several banking apps.

HSBC, Nationwide, Barclays, and Virgin Money acknowledged and were addressing problems on the last working day of the month, a typical payday.

Both HSBC and Virgin Money experienced disruptions with their mobile banking apps, which have since been largely resolved after several hours.

However, all banks are still grappling with issues related to the "faster payment system," delaying salary deposits and preventing customers from paying bills.

HSBC began experiencing problems around 8:20 am, with over 7,000 customers reporting outages on Downdetector. Users were unable to access the mobile banking app, which displayed a message indicating service unavailability.

An HSBC spokesperson commented, "Customers making online, app, or phone payments may experience delays or receive failure notices. We recommend checking recent transactions in the mobile app before retrying payments."

The spokesperson added, "We apologize to those affected and are working diligently to fully resolve the issue. Updates and guidance for customers will be communicated through our social channels."