Lloyds online banking services hit by intermittent glitch

By Anjuli Davies

LONDON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Some Lloyds Banking Group customers were struggling to access their online accounts for a second day after the British bank said on Thursday it was working to identify an intermittent glitch in its system.

Responding to complaints on social media from some people who had been unable to access online and app services since Wednesday, Lloyds acknowledged there was a problem but said the vast majority of its customers were able to log in to internet banking services as normal.

"We have been having intermittent service issues with internet banking," a spokesman for Lloyds said.

"We are working hard to restore a full service for our customers and apologise for any inconvenience caused," adding it was still investigating the cause of the issue.

Lloyds has around six million digital customers across brands including the Halifax and Bank of Scotland.

Banks are increasingly sensitive to the brand damage caused by IT failings, after a series of incidents over the past few years has prompted customers to be more wary of online security and critical of outages.

In November, retailer Tesco Plc (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) 's banking arm said that 2.5 million pounds had been stolen from 9,000 customers over the weekend in what cyber experts said was the first mass hacking of accounts at a western bank. (Reporting By Anjuli Davies; Editing by Keith Weir)