Lloyds Banking Group has initiated a probe following reports from customers of Lloyds, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland who claimed they could access other users’ transactions on their app and online banking platforms.
According to a woman who spoke to the BBC, she witnessed the accounts of six different users on her Bank of Scotland app within a 20-minute timeframe. The transactions she allegedly viewed included benefits payments from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), utilizing recipients’ National Insurance numbers as payment references.
Additionally, she noted transactions including payments from a Newcastle pub, located 154 miles away from her residence in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and payments to Waitrose, even though there is no Waitrose nearby.
Consumer advocate Martin Lewis highlighted on social media that individuals had reached out to him concerning the exposure of others’ transactions. Numerous users commented that they had seen unfamiliar payments before the app reverted to displaying their own transactions.
The extent of the impact is currently unclear, given that Lloyds Banking Group serves approximately 26 million customers. The issue seemingly arose around 7 am, as indicated by a surge in complaints during that period on DownDetector, an outage tracking platform.
A spokesperson for Lloyds Banking Group expressed regret over the incident, acknowledging that some customers encountered a brief disruption in viewing transactions on the app. They assured that the problem was swiftly addressed, and investigations are underway to determine the cause.
In a separate account, a customer from Edinburgh shared her distress upon discovering unknown transactions when accessing her banking app. She described seeing direct debits, cash withdrawals, and payments at unfamiliar locations, leading to concerns about the security of her financial information.
The customer, who recently transferred a significant sum into her account from her mother’s estate, emphasized feeling alarmed by the intrusion into her financial details. This incident has raised questions about the overall security of personal information and trust in the banking app’s accuracy.