The bank was targeted by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, although it insists there was “no risk” to customers
NatWest has been targeted by a cyber-attack, which left customers unable to access their accounts online.
The bank’s online service went down after it was deliberately bombarded with internet traffic.
Twitter users remarked that they could not access their accounts to transfer money or pay bills.
Tom Gilchrist tweeted: “Do other banks computer systems/services go down as much as NatWest?
“I assume not.
“Time to move banks I think.”
And Alex Reid wrote: “Just joined Santander.
“Fed up with NatWest.
“Another computer failure tonight. #welldone.”
Due to a surge in internet traffic deliberately directed at the NatWest website, some of our customers experienced difficulties accessing our customer web sites this evening, ” a NatWest spokesman said:
“This deliberate surge of traffic is commonly known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
“We have taken the appropriate action to restore the affected web sites.
“At no time was there any risk to customers.
“We apologise for the inconvenience caused.”