IT failure leaves Hargreaves Lansdown clients locked out of accounts

(Sharecast News) - Hargreaves Lansdown has been hit by an IT failure, leaving clients locked out of their accounts, it was confirmed on Friday. The financial services firm, one of the UK's biggest retail investment platforms, said "technical issues" were affecting parts of its website and app, leaving various services unavailable. These include accessing accounts, placing trades and adding or withdrawing money.

Downdetector, which monitors web outages, said thousands of people had reported problems since the disruption first started on Thursday evening.

The outage comes amid significant market volatile caused by the outbreak of war in the Middle East, the ensuing surge in energy prices and mounting fears about inflation and interest rates. March is also a traditionally busy period as the tax year draws to a close on 5 April, affecting ISAs and other investments and savings.

Hargreaves Lansdown - which manages more than £170bn on behalf of around 2m customers - said there was "no evidence"" the outage had been caused by a cyber incident, adding: "All clients' assets and data are secure and there is no evidence of any 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."

The Bristol-based firm, which debuted on the London Stock Exchange in 2007, was taken private last year after it agreed to be taken over by a consortium of private equity firms including CVC Group and Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund in a £5.4bn deal.