Barclays’ app and online banking appear to be down. Customers were unable to check their accounts on what for many was their January pay day. Huge numbers of Barclays customers were hit by problems around lunchtime,

Hundreds of Barclays customers are unable to access their accounts on Friday, January 31. According to DownDetector, over 1,139 users have encountered issues with the bank's online services, more than 50 per cent of the reported problems related to difficulties with mobile banking.

Barclays bank has confirmed it is experiencing IT problems which it says is affecting its app, online banking and payments in and out of accounts. The bank says it is also unable to provide help via telephone or its "Message us" service.