Several banks across the US, such as PNC Bank, US Bank, and BB&T, are down on Wednesday.
About 80 million Americans rushed to check if their stimulus payments had been deposited already. While many people already shared on social media that their $1,200 cash had been received, others complained about the bank websites and apps.
The online and mobile banking services of these banks were halted by heavy outages and slowdowns. This is the same day eligible Americans check their coronavirus IRS stimulus checks on their bank accounts.
Banks including Chase, Capital One, PNC Bank, US Bank, Navy Federal, Citi, and SunTrust as well as the app Cash App, have all confirmed the interruptions on their websites.
Web outage monitoring site Down Detector also disclosed an increase in outages for these and other online banking services.
Doug Suttles, the chief executive officer of Ookla, the company that runs Downdetector, which aggregates self-reported outages from website users and complaints on social media about websites not functioning, said the interruptions were caused by heavy user activity.
“The bank websites are not designed for all of their customers to use them all at once,” he said. Downdetector assesses about 22 million reports of website issues a month.
It would have been difficult for banks to prepare their websites for high traffic on Wednesday, according to Suttles.
“It’s very hard to re-architect how these services are built to support such a big increase in traffic," he said. "It could be months of work.”
Marcey Zwiebel, the director of public relations at PNC Bank, said in an email. explained that customers have experienced intermittent access because of "unprecedented volume of customers using these channels to check their accounts for Economic Impact Payments and other forms of financial hardship relief."
She noted that PNC is currently addressing the issue.
“We’re aware of the issues our clients experienced this morning on our heritage BB&T and SunTrust digital banking platforms due to higher than normal volume, which many other financial institutions are also experiencing,” BB&T spokesman Kyle Tarrance said.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused for our clients. Some of the issues have already been resolved, and we’re working as quickly as possible to restore all services.”
Responding to a complaint on Twitter, Fifth Third explained that "due to high volumes, some users are experiencing login issues. We are working to restore service as soon as possible."
In similar fashion, Capital One admitted on Twitter that "some customers may be temporarily experiencing issues accessing online and mobile accounts. We are working to get things back up and running as quickly as possible."
US Bank confirmed it was aware that "some customers are reporting intermittent issues when trying to log in" and that it was investigating the matter.
A spokesperson for Chase reported that the company is getting increased volume but stressed that its website and mobile apps are still functioning properly.
Representatives for Cash App and US Bank announced that they are working on the technical issues. A representative for Capital One said the bank is "working to get things back up and running as quickly as possible."
Meanwhile, a representative from Chase clarified that its website did not experience an outage but did have some "slowdowns."
“Today’s payday for a lot of people in addition to some of the stimulus that people have been getting, so you’re seeing an increase in volume,” the spokesperson said.
"Get My Payment"
The IRS launched a web tool on Wednesday called "Get My Payment," where taxpayers can see the status of their stimulus check. Users can send their bank account details to receive their payment electronically, instead of waiting for the check in the mail.
However, that website also experienced some problems.
“The other thing you can look at on Downdetector is the IRS website has had a high volume of reported problems, and this is absolutely related to stimulus payments,” Suttles said.
“This is [Secretary of the Treasury Steven] Mnuchin saying 80 million people will get their payments today. They’re all logging into the websites at the same time.”
