Barclays outage affecting payments and online banking

Barclays bank has confirmed it is experiencing IT problems which it says is affecting its app, online banking and payments in and out of accounts.

The bank says it is also unable to provide help via telephone or its "Message us" service.

Cards and cash machines can be used as normal.

Barclays has not explained the cause of the outage, or how many customers are affected.

It has apologised for the problems, and says it is "working hard to fix the issue".

Customers have taken to social media to describe the disruption it is causing.

One said that her January wages "had disappeared".

Barclays is one of the UK's largest banks, with over 20 million UK retail customers, and it says it processes over 40% of the UK's credit and debit card transactions.