NatWest, RBS In Online Banking Problems

RBS (LSE: RBS.L - news) is investigating a fault with its online banking system, amid customers reporting they were unable to access their accounts.

The bank's helpline on Twitter (Xetra: A1W6XZ - news) received dozens of messages from customers unable to log-in for online banking and the bank's mobile app earlier today.

Many of those complaining said they are due to be paid, with one saying she was overdrawn three days after payday but couldn't access online banking.

The bank responded on Twitter: "Please try not to panic".

RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank customers were affected by the problem, which lasted around 50 minutes.

An RBS spokesman later told Sky News: "The issues that some customers experienced accessing online banking this morning was due to a surge in internet traffic deliberately directed at the website.

"This deliberate surge of traffic is commonly known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

"At no time was there any risk to customers. Customers experienced issues for around 50 minutes and this has now been resolved. We apologise for the inconvenience caused."

It is not the first time the banking group has had IT problems.

Last year it was fined £56m by regulators after up to 6.5 million customers from NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank were prevented from accessing their accounts in 2012.

Customers were unable to make payments for up to three weeks, in a problem blamed on a botched software upgrade.

In June, around 600,000 transactions, including salaries and benefits, were also affected by IT problems at the bank.

RBS chief executive Ross McEwan spoke to Sky News on Thursday about the bank's IT glitches, saying: "Any drop-off in systems is totally unacceptable for us and we are under more spotlight than anybody else so the bar is higher because of our past history.

"But we've spent £750m rebuilding a lot of the capability and resistance in our systems and I’m far more confident as CEO that we’ve got really good systems that perform well."