Lloyds banking app glitch leaves customers seeing other people’s transactions

A Lloyds Banking Group spokesperson apologised for the issue and said the incident had been quickly resolved.

Customers across the bank shared screenshots on social media of a series of transactions on their mobile app that did not belong to them.

"We are currently investigating the issue and it may be the result of a technical glitch," the Lloyds Banking account responded to one customer, before stating the account was "completely safe".

One woman explained she was able to view the accounts of six different users on the Bank of Scotland app, including some National Insurance numbers, over a 20-minute period.

The information she saw included transactions from a pub in Newcastle, around 154 miles from her home in Kirkcaldy, Fife, charges for using a card abroad and wage payments from a company based in England.

The 55-year-old also said she could see benefits payments from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which use recipients’ National Insurance numbers as the payment reference.

She said: "There were transactions from Waitrose, there isn't a Waitrose near us.

"I kept logging out and back in, and every time the details changed.

"I can see another person's bank account, he got paid £6,000 yesterday. Others, I can see their benefits payments, their National Insurance numbers, I can see where they work, almost their whole identity."

One user on X wrote: "Almost had a heart attack. I logged into my Lloyds Bank and had thousands of transactions that were not mine. When I refreshed they disappeared."

Another said that when their father logged into the app it "showed all the details for a lady, including incomings, outgoings and her account number".

The incident has sparked widespread concern among users about the potential exposure of personal financial data.

Martin Lewis has weighed in on the apparent banking app glitch, urging users to report whether they had experienced the issue. Posting on X, he wrote: "I want to see how widespread this is."

One user responded: "You could see names of the incoming / outgoings but I didn’t click on them to see more details. Within a few seconds of being on the app, it reverted back to normal."

A spokesperson for Lloyds Banking Group said: "We’re sorry that some customers experienced an issue viewing transactions in the app for a short time this morning. The issue was quickly resolved and we’re looking into what happened."

The group faced a separate outage last February, when users of its banking brands reported problems and shared error messages on social media.

Several customers also said they were unable to access their accounts at the time, despite needing to make urgent payments.

Simarjot Singh Judge, Managing Partner at Judge Law said: "If banking customers were able to see the transactions or financial details of other account holders, even briefly, that could potentially amount to a serious personal data breach.

"Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, banks have a strict legal duty to ensure that customers’ personal and financial information is kept secure and only accessible to the correct individual. Financial transaction data is particularly sensitive, so the standards expected of banks are extremely high.

"If people were shown details such as wages, payments or account activity belonging to other customers, regulators will likely want to understand how the breach occurred and whether the bank’s safeguards were adequate.

"In situations like this, affected customers may be entitled to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, and in some cases individuals may also have the right to seek compensation if the breach caused distress, financial loss or misuse of their personal data.

"Even if the issue was quickly resolved, incidents involving the exposure of banking data will always be taken very seriously from a legal and regulatory perspective."