Westpac app, online banking goes down for Australians, St George also down

Westpac Bank online portals have been hit by an outage as thousands of customers complain they cannot access services including the online banking app. 

The outage was first reported at around 10:50am on Tuesday morning and is just weeks after Westpac services had another widespread outage and went down on December 4.

Some customers said their accounts had 'suddenly disappeared' when they logged into internet banking.

Others reported the app was showing a 'service disruption' message.

Customers unleashed at the bank on social media, with more than 2,600 people reporting the service as down as of 11am Monday, according to DownDetector.

'Great job at round Christmas time, no internet banking and yet you make billions in profits,  screw the customer and close branches ,' one frustrated user complained. 

Other customers said they were annoyed the app had gone offline on multiple occasions in recent months.

'Get your sh**  together.  Fourth time in four months your app is not allowing me to access my own money! Taking my money elsewhere. Over it ,' one said. 

A third declared: 'Leaving Wetspac. Absolutely ridiculous.' 

A fourth added: 'Your system is down again. Not just the app. Christmas week and we can't get our money. I'm done,' yet another irate customer shared online. 

The disruptions come as Westpac and other major banks closed branches and reduced their numbers of ATMs as Australia moves towards becoming a cashless society. 

However the shift to digital transactions has sparked many concerns, including the impact on older Australians who are not familiar with online banking, and regional communities who may have to wait days for any malfunctioning payment systems to be fixed. 

The cashless society also means people have no choice but to be a bank customer and pay them fees, as well as raising privacy concerns in a society where every purchase of any good or service can and will be tracked. 

Customers also become at the mercy of technical problems, unable to pay for anything during periods when their bank suffers any technical problems.