Why are Nationwide payments delayed?

NATIONWIDE customers have been left without access to their cash after the building society went down on Monday (February 28).

Customers have reported issues with the building society's app, at least the fourth time this has happened since Christmas Eve.

There were two outages in the span of just two weeks, with customers reporting they were unable to send or receive payments on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

The building society also experienced issues on January 4 leaving customers unable to pay bills or get wages.

The building society announced that customers hit by the blip over the festive period - especially those charged any late payment fees - will be refunded.

A Nationwide spokesperson said this time there is a delay with faster payments, which is a system for sending electronic payments online.

The outage that took place in January was blamed on system overheating - with more than 10 million payments sent overnight.

As the building society goes down again, we explain all you need to know about whether you can make payments again - and if they'll be delayed.

Can I make payments again on Nationwide?

Problems with making payments through Nationwide started at around 6am, leaving hundreds of customers unable to transfer money.

The building society said on Twitter that the technical issue is affecting some incoming and outgoing payments, causing delays.

It said "If you’ve made a Faster payment, there's no need to resend it. Standing orders, Direct Debits & cards are working normally."

Nationwide has said that transactions are temporarily being queued and that it is working hard to resolve the issues.

All other services are working normally, so you can continue to use your cards, access the Internet Bank and Banking App and withdraw cash from ATMs.

The building society also said: "No member will be left out of pocket as a result of this issue and all associated Nationwide fees and charges will be refunded."

Angry customers took to social media to complain about the system failure, frustrated about the frequency of outages in the last few weeks.

Will I get a refund or compensation for missed payments from Nationwide?

Banks or building societies do not have a fixed compensation scheme for service disruption, but depending on how big the disruption is, they might offer some money back.

Nationwide said that it will give £60 to every customer affected by the January outage, though there's no guarantee they will do the same this time.

With previous issues, Nationwide promised affected customers a refund on any late payment fees charged to their account because of the crash and it has indicated the same today too.

It is worth gathering evidence of your problems so you can make a formal complaint to Nationwide directly.

Try to make a note of when you were unable to access the website or app, plus any costs you incurred as a result.

If your credit rating has been affected by a service outage, because you got a late payment fee after being unable to make a transaction, for example, you should also keep a record of this.

If you spoke to anyone to try and resolve the problem, make a note of their name and when you spoke to them, as well as roughly what you discussed and what they advised you to do.

What if I'm unhappy with Nationwide's response?

If you’re unhappy with how a bank or building society dealt with your problem, you can contact the free Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

It is an independent body which will look at the evidence you present, and make a fair decision about the action a bank should take.

The  can usually get involved 15 days after you’ve raised concerns with the bank.

In the case of an IT system outage at a bank, the FOS says any compensation depends on your circumstances and whether you lost out as a result

If it thinks you did, then it has the power to tell the bank to reimburse any fees, charges or fines you were hit with, for example if you were unable to make a payment for a credit card bill or to your mortgage provider.

It could also tell a bank to pay you for any money you didn't receive, such as interest, if you weren't able to pay money in.

If your credit score was affected, it may tell the bank to correct your credit file.

The FOS might also tell the bank to reimburse you for any extra costs you had to make, such as phone calls or trips to your local branch, as well as a payment for any inconvenience it caused.