HSBC U.K. Online Bank Disrupted for the Second Time in Four Days

• HSBC U.K. Online Bank Disrupted for the Second Time in Four Days

On the day that HSBC Holdings Plc said it was spending $200 million to improve its digital banking services, its app crashed again.

After receiving a torrent of complaints on Twitter, the London-based lender via @HSBC_UK said it had fixed the problem within 30 minutes and blamed a “temporary technical issue.” The outage follows a similar incident on Friday when a scheduled upgrade went wrong, leaving customers without access to their accounts for several hours on a day when many would have received their paychecks.

HSBC has closed 340 branches in the past two years, about a third of its British network, as part of a cost-cutting drive and a reflection of younger clients’ preference for online and mobile banking. However, its app has been criticized by analysts at Autonomous Research, which has called the firm a “laggard” in innovation.

Incoming Chief Executive Officer John Flint replaces Stuart Gulliver in February after five years of running the retail unit, which is responsible for the digital bank.