As NatWest's banking crisis moves into its third day, customers have (predictably) take to the medium of social media to vent their frustrations with what NatWest and RBS are describing as "technical issues".




Part taxpayer-owned, NatWest kept 1,000 branches open until 7pm on Thursday and will do the same on Friday to help customers. Branches open on Saturday will stay open until 6pm, and also open on Sunday between 9am and 12pm. However, the issues of accounts essentially being frozen remains, as people cannot pay rent, receive payments or even withdraw cash.

RBS Group said: "Unfortunately we are once again experiencing technical issues with our systems and account balances have not updated properly overnight. This means where money has gone into a customers account, there may be a delay in it appearing on their balance.

"We can assure our customers that this problem is strictly of a technical nature and we continue to work hard to resolve this. We also recognise this is an unacceptable inconvenience for our customers, for which we apologise.

"Staff in our branches and at our call centres are ready and available to answer any questions and help where they can."

In the age of brand engagement being tantamount, it is nigh impossible for NatWest's social media streams - @NatWest_Help bearing the brunt of real-time customer dissatisfaction - to engage with specific customers as it usually would. With thousands of disgruntled customers Tweeting directly with their dissatisfaction, this episode has quickly turned into a PR catastrophe for NatWest.

The Guardian's Esther Addley wrote to over 10,000 followers: "Looking forward to 's arrogant and graceless response to huge IT screw up being met by mass customer exodus" - a damning assessment in under 140 characters.

With the NatWest brand currently being crucified online to a rabid and unforgiving audience of 10 million active Twitter users, the reputation and trust in the brand will be seriously compromised once NatWest's service returns - with a "mass exodus" of customers leaving in their droves now looking very possible.

The curse of brand engagement - all your victories are trumpeted; all your failings are amplified. Unlike Starbucks, Innocent and Cadbury, NatWest are feeling the sting of bad press, largely through the hugely influential formats of social media. And as the crisis seems to be no closer to a conclusion, the assassination of NatWest's brand is happening right before our very eyes, supposedly due to server failures.

Technology, eh?