Alongside this, a number of high-street banking brands have also had to own up to IT breakdowns that have denied their customers access to their own accounts or exposed their details to attack in some way.

But behind these technical problems lie process disfunctions, as the banking industry struggles to cope with rapid changes in the global financial landscape, say some industry pundits.

The most recent spate of glitches being suffered by UK high-street banks began towards the beginning of the year with having problems making payments with their debit cards.

The problems occurred in March when the bank outsourced some payment processes to a third party, First Data.

The bank said service was quickly restored, but problems with customers' debit cards continued for the next two months. Customers tweeted their frustrations to each other and the , saying its ATMs were still able to issue cash through using the cards.