Breaking: Commonwealth Bank Suffers Major Outage, Thousands of Customers Locked Out of Online Services
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Commonwealth Bank experienced a major system failure Thursday that locked thousands of customers out of online banking services and its mobile app for approximately an hour during peak business hours.
The outage affected Australia’s largest retail bank shortly before midday, with customer reports on Downdetector peaking at 7,137 shortly after noon AEST. The number of reported outages dropped to 2,790 within 40 minutes as the bank began restoring services.
“Some of our services were unavailable for approximately an hour before they started being restored,” a CBA spokesperson said. “No branches were closed as a result of the outage.”
The bank posted a message on its website notifying customers that “some of our services are currently unavailable, and we’re urgently working to fix this.”
A spokesperson said shortly before 1pm AEST that technicians had identified and were resolving the problem.
“An issue today affecting some of our services is currently being fixed,” the spokesperson said. “CommBank banking services, including payments, online access and ATMs are being restored. We apologise for any inconvenience and thank customers for their patience.”
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The disruption affected multiple banking channels simultaneously, including the CommBank app, online banking platform, payments processing and ATM networks. Customers reported being unable to access accounts, make payments or check balances during the outage window.
Some customers using Downdetector reported that joint accounts were displaying different balances to different account holders, though the bank did not confirm this specific issue in its public statements.
The outage struck during Thursday lunch hours, a high-traffic period for banking transactions as customers conduct personal banking during work breaks. The timing amplified customer frustration, with thousands taking to social media and outage reporting platforms to confirm service disruptions.
CBA emphasized that physical branches remained open throughout the incident, allowing customers to conduct in-person transactions while digital services were unavailable. The bank did not specify how many customers were affected by the outage or provide details about the technical cause.
The spokesperson apologized multiple times for the disruption and thanked customers for patience as technicians worked to restore full functionality.
“We apologise and thank customers for their patience,” the spokesperson said in the official statement.
The rapid drop in reported outages from over 7,000 to under 3,000 within 40 minutes suggested the bank successfully brought systems back online in stages, prioritizing core banking functions like payments and account access.
CBA, which serves millions of Australian customers, has experienced previous technical disruptions, though the bank did not compare Thursday’s incident to past outages or indicate whether any customer data was compromised.
The approximately one-hour duration kept the incident relatively contained compared to longer outages that have affected other major Australian banks in recent years. The bank’s quick public acknowledgment and regular updates appeared designed to manage customer concerns during the restoration process.
As of early Thursday afternoon, the bank indicated services were being restored but stopped short of declaring all systems fully operational, suggesting some customers might continue experiencing intermittent issues.
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