Barclays has now started issuing the latest round of a total £12.5 million compensation to customers affected by tech outages between January 2023 and February 2025, with some reportedly receiving payments over the past week.
In February, a number of banks’ mobile payment systems went down due to an ‘industry-wide’ IT failure, causing further disruption to those who were left without access to their accounts the previous month.
While Barclays has not released the exact number due to be paid out for ‘inconvenience or distress’ as a result of glitches, it has over 13 million digitally active customers in the UK and processes over 40% of the UK’s credit and debit card transactions.
An estimated 5% of login attempts failed during the January outages, which lasted several days. However, among those who successfully logged in, 17% attempted to submit a payment, 56% of which failed.
Back in March, the Treasury Select Committee (TSC) of MPs ordered the bank to compensate eligible Brits back in March – and a recent flurry of posts from X users who were surprised to receive ‘random’ refund payments of between £50 and £100 suggests the process is now underway.
So if you want to know whether you’re due some ‘free cash’, or what to look out for on your statement, here’s everything you need to know.
Who is eligible for Barclays compensation?
Anyone who was left out of pocket by the outages could be entitled to compensation, with Barclays working to identify all those affected before paying out in stages.
Although no figures have been released, the exact amount you can expect to receive (and when you’ll receive it) will likely depend on the level of financial impact you suffered.
‘We have been taking a proactive approach to customer complaints since the incident occurred and have dealt with as many of these as possible at the first point of contact into the bank,’ the bank said in its letter to the TSC.
‘We will continue to prioritise those customers with vulnerable characteristics or those in vulnerable circumstances.’
How to claim Barclays outage compensation
Barclays is aiming to ‘avoid customers having to make a complaint’ by using internal data to establish which account holders experienced errors.
From there, they’ll get in touch, explaining: ‘In some cases, this will involve an automated refund and in other cases, we will contact customers to either provide additional information or confirm the action we are taking.’
The payout may come as a surprise, some X users who received payouts reported receiving a deposit into their account with the reference ‘Barclays UK Refu’ – with a letter of explanation from the bank arriving at a later date.
In the meantime, it may be worth getting in touch with Barclays if you believe you’re entitled to money back but haven’t heard anything.
‘Explain the impact the outage had on you,’ advised Money Saving Expert. ‘For example, if you’ve suffered emotionally or been inconvenienced as a result.’
MSE adds: ‘There are no guarantees you’ll get anything, but Barclays told us it will review each customer’s complaint on a case-by-case basis and will look at all options to resolve the issue, which may include compensation.’
The bank also urges people to contact them directly if they wish to make a complaint, and claims these will be dealt with ‘as quickly as possible’.
‘Our expectation is that complaints will be handled in line with our regulatory requirements (with the vast majority within three days),’ continued the TSC response.
‘If there are some complex cases, there may be a small number that may take longer.’
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