Westpac mobile and internet banking outage leaves customers locked out

Some Westpac customers experienced issues trying to access their online accounts on Monday after the bank updated its internet and mobile banking service, Westpac Live.

Update 3.42pm AEST: Westpac said its mobile and online banking services are now back up and running.

A Westpac spokesperson told Canstar the online and mobile banking outage was caused by a system issue earlier today.

“The issue occurred this morning following scheduled Westpac Live updates and we are thoroughly investigating the matter,” the spokesperson said.

“This is not the standard of service we aim to provide our customers and we’re sorry for the inconvenience caused.”

Customers were unable to pay bills or transfer money

The major bank first notified customers of the outage via its social media channels at around 10am today, but some customers reported they’d experienced issues since early in the morning.

The outage left some customers unable to access their money or pay bills on time, and businesses weren’t able to log into their account to process pay runs.

Some customers who posted to Westpac on Facebook said they’d had temporary success logging in via the mobile app, while others called on the bank to pay compensation for the money they were unable to access in their accounts.

“Wages need to be paid. Hurry up,” urged one Westpac customer on Facebook.

Customers were still able to access ATM, EFTPOS, branch services, telephone banking and Bank@Post as normal during the outage, the bank said on X.

Westpac’s subsidiaries – including St. George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA – did not appear to have been affected by the outage.

This article was reviewed by our Sub Editor Tom Letts before it was published as part of our fact-checking process.