NatWest Group PLC (LSE:NWG) shares rose 1.3% on Friday, as investors shrugged off a mobile banking outage that left millions of customers unable to access their accounts.
The disruption, which began shortly after 9am, followed a software update rolled out late Thursday and affected users of the bank’s widely used app.
While the app remained offline for much of the day, other services such as online, telephone and in-branch banking continued to operate normally.
A spokesperson said the bank was “really sorry” for the disruption and was working to restore service “as quickly as possible”.
The incident comes as NatWest, like other high street banks, accelerates its shift to digital services. It plans to close 53 more branches by the end of 2025, leaving 431 locations.
Although unrelated to a cyber-attack, the outage has renewed scrutiny of UK banks’ digital resilience, particularly following a series of IT failures across the sector in recent months.
The shares were up 7p at 529p.