Banking apps have once again been hit by IT issues on payday in the UK.
Lloyds Bank and Halifax apps went down on Friday morning, according to thousands of user reports to platform outage monitor Downdetector.
Users also reported technical issues affecting access to the TSB and Bank of Scotland apps.
The number of reports flagging problems with the apps has since declined.
A Lloyds Banking Group spokesperson has told the BBC its app and online banking services are now working as normal.
The British banking giant apologised for the issues in an earlier statement.
Reena Sewraz, retail editor at consumer watchdog Which?, said they “could cause real headaches for thousands of customers” – particularly on payday.
“Some people may miss important bill payments, find themselves unable to pay for essential services or risk going overdrawn, all of which could have serious consequences,” she said.
One user told the Lloyd’s Bank social media account on X that they could not access their business account to pay their staff.
Another said in a post to tagging Lloyds Bank’s X account they had been told to transfer funds into their account, but could not due to the issues affecting its app.
“Your new cards have no phone numbers on and I’m nowhere near a branch,” they wrote – adding “help!”.
A Barclays app outage affected UK customers on payday in January.
Customers told the BBC that their bank’s outage, lasting several days for some, left them unable to purchase essentials or make vital transactions.
“I could cry. I changed to you when Barclays had a major breakdown on payday,” one X user said in a reply to a Lloyds post about its mobile and online banking issues.
“Now this month you’ve gone down on payday,” they added.
The Treasury Committee has written to the bosses of nine banks asking for information about the scale and impact of IT failures on customers.
Martin Quinn, the director of campaign group Campaign for Cash, said Friday’s banking app issues demonstrated society’s over-reliance on technology.
“This proves that now more than ever a strong bank branch network, as when outages happen, we need face to face banking,” he told the BBC.
Disability rights groups are also calling for access to physical cash to be protected.