Why Thousands Are Ditching Santander, Barclays and Halifax Right Now

Checked my banking app last week and it crashed. Again. Third time in a month. I’m with one of the big high street banks, and honestly, I’m starting to see why everyone’s jumping ship.

The numbers came out last week and they’re mental. Santander, Barclays and Halifax customer losses between July and September 2025 hit over 56,000 people. That’s 56,000 current accounts closed and switched to other banks in just three months. Santander got hit worst with 23,000 customers gone. Barclays lost 18,330. Halifax shed 14,750.

What’s Actually Happening

Between April and September this year, these three banks haemorrhaged customers like nobody’s business. We’re not talking about a few hundred people here and there. Over a quarter of a million people switched banks in the third quarter alone.

The Current Account Switch Service makes it dead easy now. Seven working days and everything transfers automatically through direct debits, standing orders, salary payments, the lot. You don’t even have to contact your old bank. Just sign up with the new one and they sort it.

My neighbour switched from Barclays to Nationwide last month. It took six days total and she got £200 just for doing it, which was basically free money.

Why People Are Leaving

Right, so there are two massive reasons behind the Santander Barclays Halifax customer losses this year.

First up: the apps are rubbish. Polling shows 44% of people who switched said they preferred their new bank’s digital services. The apps crash constantly, features are clunky, and trying to do anything takes forever. I tried to set up a new payee on my bank’s app last month and gave up after ten minutes of it not working.

Barclays had a three-day outage earlier this year. Three full days where customers couldn’t access their money online. They’re paying up to £7.5 million in compensation. Santander had a massive outage in March too, as the mobile and phone banking just stopped working.

Compare that to banks like Monzo or Nationwide, where the apps actually work properly and don’t crash every other week. People are getting fed up with paying monthly fees for apps that don’t function.

Second reason: cash switching bonuses. Banks are throwing money at new customers. Nationwide is offering £200. First Direct gives you £175. Chase had deals running earlier in the year. If your current bank’s giving you nothing and the app’s useless, why not grab free cash and switch?

Who’s Winning?

Nationwide absolutely cleaned up. Gained 54,347 new customers in Q3. That’s the fourth quarter running where they’ve come out on top. They’re doing two things right; the first being the £200 switching bonus and the second being their Fairer Share scheme that paid £100 loyalty rewards to over four million members.

Basically treating existing customers well whilst also attracting new ones. Revolutionary concept, apparently.

Monzo added 8,246 net accounts. Over 15,000 new accounts opened, more than double the number that closed. Their refer-a-friend deal is working brilliantly. Co-op Bank gained 9,175. HSBC picked up 8,219.

The pattern’s clear, as the ethical banks and digital-first banks are hoovering up customers from the old high street giants.

The Tech Outage Problem

Here’s what really winds people up. Britain’s been hit with nearly 33 days of tech outages across banks over the past two years. That’s 33 days where people couldn’t access their money properly.

Barclays customers got locked out for three days. Imagine not being able to pay for shopping or transfer money for rent for three full days. You’d be fuming too.

Santander’s March outage left people unable to make payments during the working day. These aren’t little glitches at 3am that nobody notices. These are major failures during business hours when people actually need to use their accounts.

Meanwhile, the digital banks rarely have these problems. Their entire infrastructure is built modern from scratch. The high street banks are running on ancient systems held together with duct tape and prayers.

My mate works in tech and reckons some of these banks are still using systems from the 1980s underneath all the fancy app interfaces. When something breaks, it takes ages to fix because the infrastructure’s so old.

The Money Factor

Banks are spending stupid amounts trying to win customers back. The switching bonuses cost them millions. But they’re desperate because losing customers means losing deposits, which means less money to lend out, which hits profits.

It’s a vicious circle. Their tech is rubbish, so customers leave, so they offer bigger bonuses to attract new ones, which cuts into profits, which means less money for tech upgrades, which means the tech stays rubbish.

Nationwide’s different because they’re a building society, not a bank. They don’t have shareholders demanding maximum profits every quarter. They can invest more in actually making customers happy without worrying about dividend payments.

Why This Matters to You

If you’re still with one of these banks, losing thousands of customers, it might be worth asking yourself why you’re staying. Not saying you should definitely switch, but at least check what else is out there.

The switching process is painless now. I’ve mates who’ve switched three or four times in the past two years, pocketing £500+ in bonuses. They call it “bank hopping”. Open an account, get a bonus, wait a year, and switch again for another bonus.

Banks have tried making it harder by adding requirements, as needing to pay in a certain amount monthly, move over to Direct Debits, and stay for a minimum time. But it’s still free money if you can be bothered.

Even if you don’t care about the bonus, the app quality difference is night and day. I’ve used both high street and digital bank apps. The digital ones are faster, cleaner, and actually work when you need them.

What the Banks Are Saying

Not much, to be honest. They’re acknowledging the “competitive landscape” and promising to invest in digital. Same promises they’ve been making for years.

Barclays says they’re working on it. Santander’s sorry for the outages. Halifax is part of Lloyds Banking Group, which lost 9,400 accounts of its own on top of Halifax’s losses. Total bloodbath for them.

The chief execs are still getting massive pay packets, though. Barclays boss got £10.5 million. NatWest’s boss got £7.8 million. Nationwide’s CEO got a 43% pay rise despite members not getting a vote on it. They’re doing alright whilst their customers can’t access their money for days at a time.

The Bigger Picture

The Santander Barclays Halifax customer losses aren’t just about three banks having a bad quarter. This is a massive shift in how banking works in Britain.

The high street giants dominated for decades because switching was difficult and people couldn’t be bothered. That’s changed completely. Switching takes less than a week now and you get paid to do it.

Add in the fact that digital banks offer better apps, better customer service, and fewer fees, and you can see why the old guard’s struggling.

Over 12.1 million switches have happened since the Current Account Switch Service launched twelve years ago. The pace is accelerating too. Q3 2025 was the busiest quarter of the year, with 265,083 switches.

My Take

I’m probably switching soon. My bank’s app crashed twice whilst I was writing this. That’s not an exaggeration. Tried to check my balance and got an error message both times.

Why am I paying monthly fees for this? Nationwide’s app works. Monzo’s app works. Chase’s app works. My current bank’s app is held together with string.

The big banks had decades to sort their tech out. They didn’t bother because customers had nowhere else to go. Now we do, and people are voting with their feet. Or their phones, technically.

Santander losing 23,000 customers in three months should be a wake-up call. Barclays losing 18,330 should be another one. Halifax losing 14,750 makes it a pattern.

Either they fix their tech and start treating customers better, or they’ll keep bleeding accounts until they’re not the big players anymore. Digital banks and building societies are eating their lunch, and honestly, they deserve it.

Final Words

If your bank’s let you down recently, and you have faced app crashes, outages, and rubbish service, then have a look at what else is out there. It takes ten minutes to apply and seven days to switch, and you might get £200 just for doing it.

The high street banks had their chance. They blew it. Time to move on.