Lloyds and Halifax bank customers have been warned not to make repeat transactions as the group grapples with a technical glitch with Faster Payments.

The banks, along with Bank of Scotland, come under the Lloyds Banking Group umbrella.

Reports of problems with the banking systems at Halifax and Lloyds began rolling in at about 09:00 GMT this morning, according to DownDetector.

Although some users complained they couldn’t log into the mobile app, or that it kept crashing, the main issue appears to be with Faster Payments. This is a UK initiative that aims to cut down payment times between different banks from days to seconds.

The balance does not go down after faster payments made or showing on statement even though it says they have been processed!! — katie allday (@kallday07) January 18, 2019

Similar issues were reported on DownDetector, with one customer saying: "Sent payment through Faster Pay, it has left my account but recipient hasn't received money."

Another said: "Same problem here, and when I tried multiple payments it paid one on the list but not the others. Now says Paid but nothing shown as Paid. A major problem. I just hope HMRC understand."

Lloyds Bank initially told Twitter users that it wasn't experiencing any issues:

Hi I'm PM. We're unaware of any issues with this at the moment. What happens when you try to log on? — Lloyds Bank (@AskLloydsBank) January 18, 2019

But in a statement to El Reg, the Lloyds Banking Group said: "We are aware that some of our customers are experiencing problems with making Faster Payments. We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible."

Soon after, Halifax issued a tweet saying the same thing:

We are aware that some customers are experiencing problems with making faster payments. We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We would like to assure customers they will not be out of pocket as a result of this issue,and apologise for inconvenience caused. — Halifax (@AskHalifaxBank) January 18, 2019

Lloyds Bank doesn't have any information about the current issue on its service availability page, but it does show planned maintenance was due on internet banking, mobile and tablet apps between 01:00 GMT and 06:00 GMT this morning. Further maintenance is scheduled for the same time on Sunday 20 January morning.

Meanwhile, what claims to be a more detailed update on the current situation was published on DownDetector by a customer, who said it was a message from his firm's business relationship manager:

"We have been made aware of the issues & are awaiting a further update on the position the last info I rec’d stated the following –

Following on from our earlier note, further issues have been experienced which are in the course of being recovered:

Inbound Faster Payments experienced an interruption at 09.25 which has been resolved

Approximately 124k queued outbound payments will have to be resent following some residual recovery activity which is underway

Customers may still be experiencing intermittent issues when attempting to submit payments

I would not try to resend any payments, to me the above is saying they are still in our system & will be recovered by us.

As soon as I hear anything else I will update you."

Another customer reported having been told by a Lloyds bank rep that the problem was with Faster Payments and affecting all banks. But the company that runs that service, Faster Payments Scheme Limited, told The Register they had received no reports of an issue.

We have asked Lloyds Banking Group to confirm whether it is a widespread Faster Payments issue or one just with this group, and will update this if we hear back.

Customers have been advised not to make repeated payments, but Lloyds Banking Group said that it would not leave customers out of pocket. ®