Hargreaves Lansdown hit by ‘technical’ glitch leaving clients locked out amid main market volatility

Thousands of Hargreaves Lansdown customers have been locked out of their accounts because of an IT glitch during a period of major market volatility.

The trading platform, which manages billions of pounds worth of investments on behalf of its two million customers, confirmed it was experiencing ‘technical issues’ affecting its website and app. 

It has left customers unable to make transactions during a period of major market volatility, with some claiming to have lost money as a result. 

It is also a busy period for Hargreaves Lansdown, the country’s most popular trading platform, as investors top up their Isas ahead of the new financial year.  

Thousands of people have reported problems on the website Downdetector since the disruption began on Thursday evening. 

Technical difficulties: Hargreaves says the glitch is not a cyber incident 

In a statement, Hargreaves Lansdown said: ‘We’re currently experiencing technical issues which are affecting some parts of our website and app. This is impacting clients’ ability to transact on their accounts and some of our services are currently unavailable.

‘All clients’ assets and data are secure and there is no evidence of any cyber incident data breach or system compromise.

‘We’re sorry for the inconvenience we know this will cause and are working to restore our service as soon as possible.’ 

Hargreaves customers have criticised the platform on social media for a lack of communication as investors react to the ongoing impact of the Iran war on equities and bonds.  

One X user said: ‘Hargreaves Lansdown your service being down overnight and all this morning is a disgrace – your lack of customer service is beyond me – not being able to trade easily in these wild chaotic markets is incredibly inconvenient – sort it out!!’ 

Another investor described it as an ‘utter shambles’, with others threatening to leave the platform entirely.  

Hargreaves Lansdown is already facing an exodus of customers after it announced plans to raise its fees for some 400,000 investors.  

The proposed rise in costs will see the maximum annual charge for holding shares, investment trusts, ETFs and bonds more than tripling from £45 to £150. 

It came as part of wider fee changes, which the broker said would mean 80 per cent of its customers paying lower fees and ‘providing even more clients with better value for money’.