NAB hit by major internet and mobile banking outage in Australia
Australia's National Australia Bank suffered a widespread digital outage on Wednesday, 23 September, leaving customers unable to access internet banking, the mobile app and other services; most services were restored later in the day.
What happened
National Australia Bank (NAB) experienced a major technical outage on Wednesday, 23 September, affecting several digital channels. According to Nine.com.au, the disruption hit internet banking, the mobile app, NAB Connect (the platform used by business customers), NAB Trade, NAB Broker, and the wealth management firm JBWere, which is linked to the bank. Customers also reported difficulty reaching the bank's phone-based customer service.
Customer experience
ABC News reported that some customers saw a message in the mobile app reading: "We're sorry, the app isn't working at the moment. We'll have it back up and running as soon as we can." Customer Jessi Nokes said she became aware of the outage around 1:30pm AEST while out shopping — she could still pay for items but could not log in to her mobile banking account. She regained access to online banking around 4:20pm AEST.
Bank's response
NAB acknowledged the outage and apologised to customers, stating: "Our team is working to fix this as soon as possible. We apologise for the inconvenience." The bank said no maintenance had been scheduled, and the cause of the outage had not been disclosed at the time of reporting.
Situation stabilises
According to ABC News, most NAB services had been restored later in the day. However, a bank spokesperson said some business customers were still experiencing login issues via NAB Connect: "Some business customers are continuing to experience login issues via NAB Connect, and we're working as quickly as possible to resolve the remaining impacts. We apologise to customers for the disruption and thank them for their patience and understanding while we continue to restore services."
The outage occurred on a day when Australian news was also dominated by other stories — including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's meeting with the US president in New York and debate over online safety legislation — but the NAB disruption became one of the most widely discussed events in the country, given that NAB is one of Australia's largest banks with millions of customers.
