Chargebacks911 CEO Monica Eaton was recently cited by GB News in a feature examining the wider impact of banking app outages and what happens after customers regain access to their accounts. The article looks beyond the immediate disruption caused by an outage, highlighting how service interruptions can affect customer trust and contribute to a rise in payment disputes.
The feature focuses on recent outages affecting major UK banking brands, including Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland. While restoring access is the immediate priority during an outage, the effects can continue after systems return to normal. Customers who temporarily lose visibility or control over their finances may become more likely to question transactions, seek refunds, or file disputes once access is restored.
“When a digital bank goes down, the damage doesn’t end when systems come back online. What changes is customer behaviour. After outages, people lose visibility and control in the moment. When access returns, the fastest way to regain that control is often the dispute button,” Monica explains. “We consistently see more ‘I didn’t authorise this’ claims and far less patience for delays or uncertainty.”
For banks and other financial institutions, the implications extend beyond the outage itself. Repeated service interruptions can undermine customer confidence while creating additional pressure for dispute and operations teams. As Monica further notes, “What repeated outages create is a trust reset. Availability is part of the payment promise.” She adds that institutions that fail to account for the dispute fallout of downtime may ultimately feel the impact weeks later through increased chargebacks, operational strain, and frustrated customers.
