Nationwide payments back to normal after delays

Nationwide Building Society says its payments to other building societies and banks are running normally again after delays on Friday.

Customers of what is the UK’s biggest building society reported a range of problems, including transferring money.

Nationwide says the IT issue has now been resolved but payment backlogs took a few hours to clear, resulting in delays into Friday afternoon.

It said it was “very sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

It later sent a text to customers saying “everything is back to normal”.

Nationwide said the problems had been caused by planned maintenance works overnight over-running, resulting in the firm’s network being down for longer than expected.

One customer told the BBC that he had been unable to make payments relating to his mortgage.

Richard Bagnall, from Cambridge, said he was attempting to transfer money to another building society in order redeem his mortgage today.

“It had to be today to avoid penalties,” he said, adding that it was the final day of his mortgage’s fixed interest rate.

The website showed a “technical error” when he attempted the transfer – but did not suggest that the payment was in a queue, he said.

He ended up taking a cheque to the branch of Cambridge Building Society, where he has his mortgage – but they told him that might not clear until Monday.

Responding to a post on X, formerly Twitter, from Nationwide acknowledging the issue, customers have reported a range of problems.

One person said they had made transfers, with the money leaving their account but not entering the account it was sent to.

Another person claimed to have had problems buying a train ticket.

Many people have criticised Nationwide, calling the incident “shocking” and “frustrating”.

Its card services were unaffected, and direct debits and standing orders worked normally.

The firm is currently trying to buy Virgin Money in a £2.9bn deal which would create the UK’s second largest mortgage and savings group.