Thousands suffer network outage at Westpac, St George days before Christmas

One of Australia’s big four banks has provided an update after thousands of customers were affected by a network outage.

Banking giant Westpac has issued its first update hours after thousands of customers, including at St George, were affected by outages just days before Christmas.

At least 2700 people have reported their Westpac online banking services are not working as of 11.30am on Tuesday, according to Down Detector.

Thousands have suffered network outage at Westpac bank days before Christmas. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

At 1.30pm – two hours after issues were first reported – Westpac said in a statement that mobile and online banking services were “returning to normal”.

“Some customers may continue to experience intermittent issues,” the bank said. “We apologise to customers who have experienced issues with our services today.”

Westpac and St George earlier said they were “aware that customers are experiencing intermittent issues accessing online, mobile and telephone banking”.

“Our teams are working to fix the issue,” the statement to Facebook said. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience and will continue to share updates here.”

The issue was reported by Westpac as well as its subsidiaries, St George, Bank of Melbourne, and BankSA. At its peak, more than 500 St George users reported outages.

Users on X, formerly known as Twitter, first reported experiencing issues, including with online banking services, shortly after 11am on Tuesday.

Outage messages being received by Westpac customers. Picture: Twitter / BroHilderchump

“Hey Westpac … will EFTPOS still work? This is the stuff you need to tell your customers within minutes of your online banking not responding,” one user said.

“Are we going to be left again with trolleys full of groceries we can’t pay for at the checkout,” another user added: “Why is Westpac down again. Second time this month.”

@Westpac app is extremely slow with a constantly appearing and disappearing message “this is taking a bit longer” #westpacdownpic.twitter.com/eSBaKU6agV

— Santrupta Mishra (@mishrastweets) December 19, 2023

Many other customers were quick to point out the issues could throw into chaos last-minute Christmas shopping, including groceries for the holiday weekend.

“Frustrating! Especially when trying to do final pays for people before Christmas, pay invoices and pay myself,” Cola Maurirere wrote on Facebook.

Another customer on Twitter added: “So Westpac online banking is borked again? Good luck with you Christmas shopping today.”

Westpac customers in Western Australia, South Australia, NSW, Queensland and Victoria are all experiencing outages. Picture: DownDetector

The reported outage comes less than a month after more than 10,000 customers reported being unable to access their online accounts, including via the website.

At the time, users reported seeing their accounts “suddenly disappear”, while other bank accounts that should have been holding money had a $0 balance.