Thousands of UK bank customers have been hit by payment problems affecting some of the biggest High Street lenders.

Banks including HSBC, Nationwide, Barclays and Virgin Money have all been affected by issues with a system that operates payments between individuals and firms.

Many customers have complained on social media, with some saying their salaries have not been paid into their accounts.

The group overseeing the payments system said the issue causing the problems has been fixed, but a payment backlog remains.

The timing of the glitches was particularly problematic given the last Friday of the month is when many people are paid.

Many people also have to pay bills around this time.

“My bills are bouncing and I can’t pay for a train ticket I need in the next hour,” said one customer.

Another said customers deserved compensation for the “inconvenience on people’s pay day”.

“We all have bills to pay,” they added.

UK Finance, which represents the major banks, said the backlog created by the issue is “being worked through as quickly as possible”.

• HSBC told the BBC: “Customers sending payments online, by app or on the phone may see a slow response or see a failure notice. “We advise them to please check with the recipient or view their recent transactions in the mobile app via the notifications icon before attempting to the send the payment again.”
• Nationwide told the BBC it was aware of “third-party payments issues impacting some providers, including Nationwide” which had “delayed a small number of payments”. It said all other services are working as normal.”
• Barclays also acknowledged customers had been hit by the same issue in response to a complaint on X. “So sorry to hear you’ve been caught up in the issue with regards to the payments being made and received.
• Virgin Money told the BBC it was still working through a backlog. “New payments are now flowing normally,” it added, apologising for the issue. It said customer service call waiting times may be longer because of the problems.

The BBC understands that the banks were affected by issues to Faster Payments, a system that operates “under the bonnet” of the UK financial system.

It aims to make sure real-time payments between millions of individuals and businesses are made seemingly instantly.

Pay UK, which oversees the system, said: “We are aware that a small number of Faster Payments were delayed or not processed earlier today.

“Working with our infrastructure provider, this technical issue has been fixed. We are now seeing payments return to normal.”

This is not the first time High Street lenders’ services have been hit by problems.

Nationwide customers faced similar issues in March, while HSBC customers suffered an outage lasting over 24 hours in November.