NatWest Down: Why is the NatWest app not working and how long will NatWest be down for?

NatWest has more than 7.5 million personal customes and 850,000 small business customers in the UK.

NatWest is one of the biggest banks in the UK, serving millions of customers all over the country.

76% of UK citizens used online banking in 2020, highlighting how many people value the instant and easy access to their finances.

That’s why, when banking apps go down, customers are quick to notice.

NatWest serves over seven million personal customers across the UK. Photo: Matt Crossick.

It can result in late payments, inability to pay on the go, and a variety of other issues.

Here’s a look at some of the issues NatWest customers have been facing this morning and how to resolve the issue if you’re still facing it.

Is NatWest down?

As of 8.02am on Thursday December 2nd, Downdetector had received over 3,000 reports about NatWest services being down.

Of this number, 57% were to do with mobile banking, 26% to do with mobile banking, and 17% to do with online banking.

Nonetheless, NatWest’s own status page states that all its services are working normally and there has been no formal statement from the company on Twitter.

In replies to customers asking NatWest what the issue is, the banking group replied on Twitter, saying "we are not aware of any of any ongoing issues with our mobile app, however thank you for bringing this to our attention we will take a look into this."

Later, as more reports came in, the Twitter account changed its response to: "This is currently being investigated by our tech team and we hope to have this back up and running for you as soon as possible."

Why is the NatWest banking app not working?

The majority of users seemed to be encountering an error message that states: “Some kind of error has occurred when trying to establish a connection between your device and ourselves.”

The error messaged also listed various potential reasons for this fault, including lack of data or WiFi, not having the latest version of the app, or an issue within the app itself.

As a result, many customers were unable to access mobile banking through the app or online banking elsewhere.

How long will Natwest be down for?

The issues seem to have begun at around 7am on Thursday December 2nd, and NatWest acknowledged the problem two hours later.

At around 9.20am, NatWest began to respond to users on Twitter stating that “there were a few technical issues with the app this morning. It should be working for you now.”

The bank recomends customers who are still having issues to log out and and then log back in again, and that should overcome the error message.

NatWest has not elaborated on what the original issue was yet.